Manuel Sánchez, Antoni Furió, Ángel Sesma Muñoz Old and...

Manuel Saacutenchez Antoni Furioacute Aacutengel Sesma Muntildeoz

Old and New Forms ofTaxation in the Crown ofAragon (13th_14th Centunes)

As in the other major Western kingdoms the process of constructing the new State taxation system in the Crown of Aragon developed between the middle of the 13th century and the central years of the following one In this period as well as a great expansion of the territory of the Crown in the Iberian Peninsula and the Western Mediterranean there also took place the transition from a feudal patrimonial monarchy to a territorial one with an increasingly developed and consolidated adllUacutenistration

Formed as a result of the dynastic union (1137) of the kingdom of Aragon with the county of Barcelona (which the other Catalan counties had been joining or were ro do so in the future) the Crown of Aragon considerably extended its borders with the conquests of Majorca (1229) and Valencia and the annexation of the major islands of the Western Mediterranean the 14th century In addition to this formidable territorial expansion there was almost sustained econollUacuteC growth that would not haIt until quite sorne time after the great calanuacuteties of the 14th cenhu-y Whereas at the beginning of the 12th century before the dynastic union Aragon and Catalonia together covered little more than 43000 square kilometres in a narrow strip at the foot of the Pyrenees in just fifty years they had doubled their territory with the conquest of the Ebro Valley (from Leacuterida to Tortosa) A hundred years later after the incorporation ofValencia and the Balearic Islands in the llUacuteddle of the 13th century the Crown covered a vast area of over 115000 square kilometres with a thousand kilometres of coastline from Perpignan to Guardamar and over five hundred between the two points farthest apart

and Mahoacuten (on the island of Minorca) Thus in just short of two llWIULCU years from the middle of the 12th to the end of the 13th century the Crown of Aragon had almost tripled it8 initial size and was to continue its expansion in the following century with the incorporation of Sicily ami Sareinia

However the dynastic union die not do away with the peculiacutearities of each of the four territories that made up the Crown which maintainee their separate legal ane institutional character Aragon kept the econollUacutec social and poliacutetical traits developee in the old kingdoms long march from its original Pyrenean enclave to south of the Ebro Valley Catalonia evolved from the social structures born of the feudal revolution of the 11 lh century and its expansion down the Mediterranean coast to beyond the mouth of the Ebro With regard to Valencia James 1 was very careful not to annex the new territory to Catalonia or Aragon as had happened with the lands taken previously from the Muslims of al-AndaIus he established a

100 MANUEL SANCHEZ ANTONI FeRIoacute AacuteNGEL SESMA MUNOZ

new kiacutengdom in a new political space more advantageous for the monarchys actions as there was no great feudal aristocracy and for the introduction of the new Romanist currents that were strengthening the sovereigns authority Finally Majorca - detached from the Crown along with Montpellier Roussillon and Cerdagne by James I who divided his kingdoms up among rus sons - had a privative dynasty until Peter the Ceremonious incorporated it once and for all into the Crown in 1344 Although the peculiarities of the three kingdoms and the principality of Catalonia far from fading would assert themselves over time until they culminated as we shall see in the middle of the 14th century they always maintained the idea of unity that the common monarchy gave them

Such a vast expanse of territory required a huge organizational effort The new kingdoms and territories had to be setded organized into administrative units given laws and institutions in short the colonization had to be organized at the same rate as the expansiacuteon - expansion that was not merely the preserve of the Catalano-Aragonese monarchy or the rest of the Iberiacutean kingdoms likewise embarked upon the conquest of al-Andalus but also of the rest of the monarchies of Christian Europe confronting each other in a continual process of redefining their frontier8 with the 1088 or annexation of new lands For this to prepare for war offensive or defensive to protect the rights acquired in the markets and trading routes - we must remember that in the case of the Crown of Aragon the expansion also had right from the start a strong mercantile side to it in the Mediterranean that was to last for the rest of the Middle Ages - and to administer their kingdoms to maintain a growing and increasingly complex bureaucracy huge resources were needed Did the Crown have them

1 THE INADEQUACY OF THE MONARCHYS ORDINARY RESOURCES

According to an old theory uphcld to protect their own interests by the representatives of the different kingdoms even though nobody really believed in it mediaeval kings had to live from what was theiacuters ie from the rents and taxes coming from the royal estatesl Trus was not the case with the Crown of Aragon where in the mid-13th century the king was no longer abJe to live exclusively from rus patrimonial income The cosdy foreign policies of the first count-kiacutengs and especially of Peter the Catholic (1196-1213) had profoundly eroded the income from the royal domain As TN Bisson pointed out the need to take out sizable loans providing as guarantees large areas of land and resources of the domain drastically depleted the monarchys patrimonial base Indeed in the lands received as surety for the loans the creditors acted like authentic lords whereby the sovereign lost control over much of his ordinary income2

bull

Therefore one of the chief tasks of the regents and tutors ofJames I during the early years (1213-1229) of rus reign was the restoration of that depleted patrimony

1 On this point see L SCORDIA Le roi doit IIacutevre du sien La theacuteone de Iimpoacutet en Franee (Xlll-XVf) Paris 2005 (lnsritut deacutetudes augusriniennes)

2 TN BISSON Fiscal Account of Catalonia under the Early Count-Kings (1151-1213) Berkelev 1984

(University of California

THE CROWN OJi ARAGON 101

Besides recovering many of the places given as securiacuteties the regents took both in Aragon and in Catalonia important steps designed to achieve a better and more careful management of the patrimonial domains supervising the accounts of their administrators and collecting rents and taxes punctually Thus after these initiatives and a renewed interest in keeping central accounts of the domains (above all after the conquests of Majorca and Valencia) during the long reign of James 1 (d 1276) the Crown of Aragon was quite possibly still being funded largely by the income from the royal estate3 even though income from other taxes had already begun to be collected levied at exceptional moments on the whole kingdom and not merely as up to then on the royal domain

As in other Western kingdoms in his domain the king acted as a lord of lands and men receiving with sorne exceptions the same rents and identical taxes to those receiacuteved by the great lay and ecclesiasticallords on their estates Above all he I~I recclved the rents generated by the royal possessions and monopolies such as ii

ovens butcheries mills fishmongers salt mines etc He also received a series of taxes levied direcdy on his men and part of the ecclesiastical tithe on the lands of rus domain4bull Thus the monarch was entided to demand in the cities and towns of the royal domain a number of taxes like the pechas (Aragon) questias (Catalonia) and peitas (Valencia) Levied regularly since the middle of the 13th century and with a certain degree of arbitrariness as to their size limited only by the growing skill at negotiating of the nascent municipalities these taxes were the Crowns most imporshytant source of flnance before the spread of the subsidies granted by parliaments (Cortes) well into the 14th century Similarly important for the royal treasury were the sporadic redemptions of military service (host and cavaleada) Lasdy although less financially important for the Crown the king received cenas (old right of hospitalishyty) limited from the end of the 13th century to a fixed sum paid in cash It is imporshytant to bear in mind that almost all these contributions were paid on the whole the rural and urban communities to the royal tax collectors and that in order to raise the sums demanded different tallas were established among the inhabitants of 11

the cities and towns according to their assets (per solidum el libram) Therefore in these practices already extensively documented from the beginning of the 13th century we find as we shall see later the flrst signs of a specifically urban taxation system

The king also received the funds raised by a series of indirect taxes (lezdas ~I lleudes mesuratges pesos peajespeatges ete) levied in the markets of the royal cities and I

3 TN BISSON Las finanzas deljoven Jaime 1 (1213-1228) X Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Arag6n Zaragoza 1980 n pp 161-208 and IDEM Prelude to Power Kingship and Constitution in the ampalms ofAragon 1175-1259 in RL BURNS The WorMs ofAlfonso the Leamed and James the Conqueror Princeton 1985 pp 23-40

4 In Valencia it was a thlrd of the rithe (tctf-deme) after the agreement reached in 1241 between the king and the bishop This rent was the largest income of the royal estate in the kingdom of Valencia see among others E GUlNOT El Patrimoni reial al Paiacutes Valencia a iexclnicis del segle XV in Anuario de Estudios Medievales 22 1992 pp 581-639 and AJ MIRA JOacuteDAR Entre la renta y el impuesto Valencia 2005 (publicaciones de la Universidad de Valencia) Also in Majorca the oE 1315 regulated the disrriacutebution of the rithe between the king and the bishop O F LOacutePEZ El dieW10 en el reino de Malorcay en la estructura econoacutemica de la Procuracioacuten Real (1 ~ 1 _111)( I J)~1- 1

1986)

103 102 MANUEL SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FURIUacute AacuteN(iexclEL SESMA MUNOZ

towns Despite their importance numerous con ce ssion s and generous exemptions considerably reduced the returns from these taxes fot the Crown Moreovet the full amount of the money raised ratcly enteted its coffers as a consequence of share-outs with nobles and magnates of donations or pattial sales the king received a portion - at times very small of these lleudes peatges and mesuratges Even so when it is possible to calculate their value these commercial taxes tepresented the highest percentage of the patrimonial income in certain cities and towns5bull

Lastly certain Moorish communities also belonged to the royal estate numerous aboye all in the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia - plus all the Jewish ones the latter considered the kings treasure chest Therefore the kings policy towards them especially towards the Jewries was not too different from what he displayed mutatis mutandis with regard to any other source of income from his estate maxirnizing their returns increasing their number stepping up protection of them and preventing their alienation from the royal domain6bull Below we shall refer to the extraordinary fiscal pressure exerted by the Crown on the Jews of CataloruashyAragon during the first half of the 14th century

As we have been saying these taxes and rents were levied exclusively in the lands of the royal estate Beyond the kings own domain the Crown also collected two taxes on the estates of the nobility and the Church monedrijelmonedatge and bovatge which based on distant precedents had been established around the end of the 12th century The two taxes were different in concept and the territory they were levied in Monedqje known expressly by this name in 1205 and paid so that the king would not debase the coinage was collected onIy in the kingdom of Aragon from 1236 onwards its payment was established every seven years It was later introduced with the name moraban - from the coinage of Arab origin its value was originally established in - in the kingdoms of Valencia (1266) and Majorca (1301)

5 For al these questions and in general for the tirnespan that this paper covers see M SANCHEz-MARTIacuteNEZ La evolucioacuten de la jirCtJlidad regia en los paiacuteser de la Corona de Aragoacuten (e 12801J56) in XXI Semana de Estudios Medievaes ( Europa en los umbrales de la crisis 1250-135J Pamplona 1995 pp 393-428 JA SESMA MUNtildeoz Las transjormaciones de la Jiscalidad real en la baja Edad Media in XV Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Aragoacuten l1 Zaragoza 1996 pp 231-291 and M SANCIIEZshyMART1NEZ El naixement de la fiscalitat dEstat a Catalunya (segles XII-XIV) Vic-Girona 1995 On the royal estate in the kingdom of Valencia see note 4 in the kingdom of Aragon E SARASA Aragoacuten en el reinado de Fernando I (1412-1416) Zaragoza 1986 and in the principality of Catalonia MT FERRER MALLOL Elpatrimoni reial i la recuperacioacute deis senyoriusjunrdiccionals en els estats catalano-aragonesos a la fi def segle Xlv~ in Anuario de Estudios Medievales 7 1970-1971 pp 351-492 M SAacuteNCHEZ-MARTIacuteNEz Una aproximacioacuten a la estmctura del dominio real en Cataluntildea a mediados def siglo XV in IDEM Estudios sobre renta fiscalidad y finanzas en la Gatauntildea bajomedielJal Barcelona 1993 pp 381-453 and P ORTIacute GOST Renda ifiscalitat en una ciulat medieval Barcelona segles XII-XIV Barcelona 2000

6 On the Muslims in the territory of the Crown see the proceedings of the Simposios Internacionales de Mudejansmo that have been held in Teme since 1975 And more in general J BOSWELL Tbe Rriquestyal Treasure Muslim Communities under the Cfxllm qf Aragon in the Fourteenth Century Yale 1977 (Yale University Press) MT FERRER MAJLOL EIs Mnains de la Corona catalanoaragonesa en el segle XIV Segregacioacute i discriminacioacute Barcelona 1987 and J HINOJOSA MONTALVO Los mudeacutejares la voZ del Islam en la Espantildea cnstiana I-Il Temel 2002 On the Jewish communities see despite its antiacutequity F BAER Historia de lor judiacuteos en la Corona de Aragoacuten (r XIII y XII) Zaragoza 1985 but fmm the pcrspective were are dealing with here -the dependence of the Jews on the royal estate- we find considerably interesting the study by J RIERA SANS EIs poderspuacuteblies i les sinaglguer segler XIII-XV Girona 2006

THE CROWN OF ARAGON

where just as in Aragon it survived until after the periacuteod we are dealing with here Bovatge on the other hand was limited to Catalonia only and from 1217 took on the character of an accessiacuteon tax paid at the beginning of every reign This however did not stop James 1 obtaining besides what he was entitled to three further bovatges negotiated with the nobility and the Church to pay for the conquests of Majorca (1229) Valencia (1236) and Murcia (1264) That i5 they were levied at exceptional times and to cover the costs of extraordinary military campaigns Ve should point out the fact that regarding Catalonia these bova(f8S were the first examples of a general system of taxation (paid all over the territory above ami beyond the different jurisdictions) negotiated at Cortes with the privileged classes Later with the nobility and the cities exempted from this tax after 1300 accession bovatge gradually disappeared as the 14th century progressed7

Subjected to periodic amputations with the tariffs of the indirect taxes on the markets fossilised with an important part of the money raised by them allotted to the powerful magnates as fief-rente or other types (we must not forget the monarchys role as an authority redistributing the rents and taxes coming from its domain) the patrimonial funds amounted to barely 15 of the monarchys income8

bull Although it was possible to maintain in part local administration and cope with other items of expense with these resources its was obvious that they were not enough to overcome the serious challenges that the Catalano-Aragonese monarchy had to face from the last third of the 13th century onwards

n TOWARDS NEW FORMS OF TAXATION THR CRISIS 01 1283 AND [TS CONSEQUENCES TI lE FIRST AIDS FROM CORTES

When Peter the Great (1276-1285) carne to the throne the revolt of the Muslims in the kingdom of Valencia was still going on then the king had to confront a powerful league of rebellious barons straight after that he began to prepare an important naval campaign in the Vestern Mediterranean with the aim of annexing the island of Sicily lf to this we add the devclopment of a policy aimed at firmly strengthening royal authority it is not difficult to conclude that the earIy years of his reign were characterised iacutentense fiscal pressure on the territories of the Crown More than anything the new king took great care to demand the rents and taxes of the royal estate punctually furthermore he established a tax on salt in Aragon and Cataloniaj he demanded a fifth of the cattle (quinta) in Aragon he tried to collect the accession bovatge owed him in Catalonia before entering the

7 On the origin and evolution of rhese taxes sce among others TN BrssoN The Organized Peaee in Southem France and Catalonia in Thc American Historical Review LXXXII 1977 pp 290-311 IDEM Conseroation of Coinage Monetary Exploitation and iexclts Restraints in Franee Catalonia and Aragon (e AD 1000-1225) Oxford 1979 (Clarendon Press) C ORcAsTEGUI GROS La reglamentacioacuten del impuesto del monedaje en Aragoacuten en los siglos XIII-XlV in Aragoacuten en la Edad Mediacutea V 1983 pp 113-121 F SOLDEVILA A proposiacutet del seroei del bOlJatge in Anuario de Estudios Medievales 1 1964 pp 573-587 and P ORTIacute GoSl 14 primera articulacioacuten del estado feudal en Cataluntildea a tratJeacutes de un impuesto el bovaje (ss Xl1-XIII) in Hispania 209 2001 pp 967-998

8 See for a slightly later period CH GlJrW~REacute Lesfinances de la Couronne dAragon au deacutebut du XIV siicfe (1300-1310) in M SANCHEZ-JARliNEZ Estudios sobre renta cit pp 487-507

104 105 MANUEL SANCHEZ ANTONI FURIOacute AacuteNGEL SESMA MUNOZ

principality and swearing bis privileges and in general in the three territories of the Crown he requested sizable extraordinary subsidies as well as substantial redemptions from the military service The protests of the nobles clergy and cities were widespread in the face of tbis unusual fiscal offensive9bull

Nevertheless the monarch managed to carry out bis great naval expedition that as 1S well known ended in the conquest of Sicily in 1282 Well known also are the irnmediate consequences of tbis action Pope Martin IV excommunicated the king and formally dispossessed him of bis kingdoms Back in the Peninsula Peter III called Corles in Aragon and Catalonia and in Valenda held an assembly with the representatives of the royal towns all this had the aim of obtaining the support necessary to defend from Charles of Anjou the places he had conquered in the Mediterranean These circumstances were used by the privileged groups in each kingdom to halt the kings aggressive fiscal policy and put a stop to the authoritarian methods employed by the sovereign since the beginning of bis reign wbich were threatening their immunity and rnight damage their incomes

Indeed at the assemblies held in 1283 in Zaragoza Barcelona and Valencia the king had to relinquish many taxatiacuteon initiatives taken at the time he assumed the throne and he also had to accept certain demands made by the nobility clergy and urban representatives Thus he confirmed the General Privilege of Aragon suppressed the quinta on cattle abolished tolls and sorne taxes on trade cancelled the tax on salt and generally swore not to demand any more indirect taxes than those that had been paid twenty years previously But the importance of those assemblies goes far beyond the fiscal In the light of their consequences traditional bistorians have considered them the cornerstone of Catalano-Aragonese

or pactism In short at those Corles a new way of creating taxes in the Crown of Aragon was produced with greater or lesser emphasis the privileged groups present at the assembliacutees managed to make sure that no general constitution in any of the kingdoms coutd be approved without the agreement of Corles wbich moreover had to meet every year And as an obvious corollary nor could any general tax be introduced without having first been negotiated at the assembly and authorised by it Tbis point is fundamental for understanding the birth the consolidation and the characteristics of the new State taxation in the lands of the Crown of Aragon The king had a relatively free hand on the lands of the royal estate but he was denied any attempt to extend the scope of fiscal pressure beyond bis domain proper - on the lands of the nobility the Church and on the royal cities themselves without the prior of Corles wbich could always in the end grant a subsidy by its grace and not because it was obliged to do so non ex oblifatione seu set soum exprovidentia et mera vountatelO

Ml FALCOacuteN amppercusioacuten en las ciudadesy villas aragonesas de la poliacutetica mediteroacutenea in XI Congresso diacute Storia della Corona dAragona IrI Palermo 1984 pp 101shy

120 C LALIENA La adhesioacuten de las ciudades a la Unioacuten poder realy conflictividad social en Aragoacuten (J

fines del siglo XIII in Aragoacuten en la Edad Mediacutea VIII 1989 pp 299-413 IacuteDEM El impacto fiscal en la economiacutea campesina en Aragoacuten a finales del siglo XIII in Monnaie creacutedit et jiscalileacute dans le monde mral 10 conjoncture de 1300 en MeacuteditelTaneacutee occidentale Seminario de la Casa de Velaacutezquez Madrid 2007 (at press)

10 See among others L GONZAacuteLEZ ANTOacuteN Las Uniones arciexclgonesas y las Cortes del reino (1283shy1301) I-Il Zaragoza 1975 J SOBREQUEacuteS CALLlCOacute 10 praacutectica poliacutetica del pactiSfllO en Cataluntildea and J

THE CROWN 01 ARiGON

Very soon there was an opportunity to put the rules of the game in matters of taxation established in 1283 into practice Duriacuteng the reiacutegns of Alfonso In the Uberal (1285-1291) and the early years of James II (1291-1305) the CroW1l of Aragon had to face up to a powerful French-Angevin-Papal coaliacutetion defend the territory against the French invasion put down internal revolts ~ the

uaiexclVJ- Union - and deal with the disputes with Castile AH tbis one the most dramatic situations for the Crown during the Middle Ages Among other measures to raise funds the tViO kings proceeded to the massiacuteve sale of places rents and jurisdictions of the royal estate thus initiating the slow but unstoppable process of the dissolution of the domain They also increased the requests for subsidies made to the royal cities and towns But it was not enough the challenges were so great that the kings had no option but to resort to extraordinary general taxation to ask for aids beyond the monarchys estate Therefore according to what had been agreed in 1283 it was necessary to call the Corles of each kingdom and ask it for the necessary subsidies Thus it was that between 1286 and 1304 there took place a series of assembliacutees in the three kingdoms - Aragon 1290 1300 and 1301 Catalonia 1289 1292 and 1300 and Valencia 1286 and 1301-02 that granted the kings large sums of money These were collected by way of different methods taxation (direct head taxes or cabefatges and a salt tax) although the indirect taxes on transactions (sisas) predorninated an indicatiacuteon of the vitality the urban markets in 130011 bull

After the monedqjes and bovatges of the 13th century these subsidies are the ftrst and clearest examples of State taxation in the countries of the Crown of Aragon Given that thereafter tbis taxation would be constructed on similar foundations (the request for aids and their negotiation either at a general Corles or in meetings with the town representatives) perhaps it is worth observing sorne of their characteristics taking as an examplc the case of the Corles of Catalonia in 1289 1292 and 130012bull Firstly the gifts were granted exclusivdy for the defence of the territory and therefore the money raised had to be used for this purpose only Moreover according to the doctrine of cessante causa the taxes voted to raise the funds would be cancelled if the reason for their granting should disappear With tbis the aim was to avoid the said taxes becorning permanent or even worse the king incorporating them into bis estate Moreover if the subsidy was granted ex gratia for the defence of the territory and the king had no entitlement to it the taxes

en los roinos de Aragoacuten y de Valencia both studiacutees published in El pactismo en la historia de Madrid 1980 pp 49-74 and 113-139 On the social consequences of the 1283 Cortes see JL MARTIacuteN Privilegios y cartas de libertad en Corona de Aragoacuten (1283-1289) in Album Elemer Malyusz 1976 pp 125-170- IacuteDEM Pactismo poliacutetico y consolidacioacuten sentildeorial en Cataluna tras la conquista de Sicilia in JL MAKliN Economiacutea y sociedad en los roinos hispaacutenicos de la baja Edad Media 1 Barcelona 1983 pp 237-254 and ]A SESMA MUNtildeoz Los traniformacioner de la fiscaliexcldad real dt pp 248-252

11 With respeet to Catalorua see Corts parlaments ifiscalitat a Catalunya EIs capiacutetoLs del donatiu (1288shy1384) ed M SAacuteNCHEZ P ORTIacute Barcelona 1997 (Generalitat de Catalunya) does I-IV pp 1-32 for Valencia J MARTIacuteNEZ MOY Lo Diputacioacuten de la Generalidad del reino de Valencia Valencia 1930 PP 43shy66 and far L GONZAacuteLEZ ANT6N Las Uniones aragonesasJ las Cortes del reino

12 Corts Parlaments cit docs Ir IrI and IV pp 9-32 and M SAacuteNCHEZ-MARTIacuteNEZ El ntlIacutexement de la cit pp 56-64

106 107 MANUELSANCHEZ ANTONJ FURJOacute AacuteNGEL SESMA MUNtildeOZ

established to obtain it their collection and even their of each of the three orders (bra70s) without

these general principies - subsidies granted by the grace of Cortes and administered by comrnittees appointed by each braZfJ - were repeated from the end of the 13th century in each and every one of the grants of gifts in the lands of the Crown of Aragon They are therefore a trait peculiar to these territories as opposed to for example the Crown of Castile where the kings ended

a state taxation system by their own authority and without the Cortes signifying any particular limitation on the monarchys powers

IIl URBAN INTERLUDE THE ROYAL CITIES AND TOWNS COME TO THE CROWNS

AID DURTNG THE FIRST HALl OF THE 14TH CENTURY

With the Mediterranean conflict dying down after the peaces of Anagni (1295) and Caltabellotta (1302) Kings James n (1291-1327) and Alfonso IV the Benign (1327-1336) continued to call Cortes in the three kingdoms though not at the yearIy intervals envisaged in 1283 At them important matters were discussed and constitutions of great institutional interest were enacted but until 1323 the year of the conquest of Sardinia the kings did not ask for general sudsidies along the lines of those requested at the end of the 13th century The absence of wars where the defence of the kingdoms was at stake perhaps allows us to explain this hiatus in the process of constructing the States taxation system in the first two decades of the 14th century In this period there are signs of a redoubled interest in achieving maximum returns frorn the resources of the estate carefully controlling the income that came from it This was c1ear for example in the demands for increasingly substantial ordinary taxes (questias pechas and peitas) although at this stage the negotiating skills of the municipalities managed to set some limits to the Crowns fiscal voraciousness But it was seen aboye all in the subsidies obtained from the Jewish communities indeed during the first forty years of the 14th century the Jewries were asked every year and for different reasons to grant the Crown very high subsidies 14 At the end of the reign of Alfonso IV the Benign the flight of Jews to the lands of the nobility or from the territories of the Crown the concealment of goods the growing indebtedness and the authentic bankruptcy of many Jewries were sorne of the consequences of this fiscal pressure indissociable

13 See for extIUIgte real en Castilla Madrid 1993 (Editorial

THE CROWN 01 ARAGON

from the decline of many Jewish communities in the 1340s ie bifore the Black Death

However from the point of view of the new taxation system the most important characteristic of the first half of the 14th century was the prorninence acquired by the royal cities and towns in the financing of the monarchys campaigns in the Mediterranean In the case of Catalonia although Kings Alfonso IV and Peter IV the Ceremonious (1336-1387) called Cortes to ask for a gift from the three brazos following the tradition of the late 13th century with the aim of pursuing the conquest of Sardinia (1323) and the wars with Genoa and Granada (1333) both kings failed in their attempts perhaps because the brazos with jurisdiction - those of the Church and of the nobility - considered that these wars were essentially dynastic in which the defence of the territory was not at stake and that therefore they should be paid for by the king with the income from his own estatel5

Paced with this refusal the kings went back to where it was easiest for thern to find money the royal cities and towns then experiencing great dernographic and economic growth It should not be forgotten however that although they bclonged to the royal dornain the kings could only demand from these urban centres the ordinary taxes (questias pechas peitas and cenas) established by custom by special privileges or by general fueros (rights and privileges) With this we mean to say that if the king wanted to obtain a subsidy larger than the ordinary taxes he had to negotiate it with the municipal lcaders in terms not too different in some ways from those used with all other privileged groups (within Cortes or without) in return granting concessions of a social econornic or political nature Thus taking advantage of the margins that they were allowed by the negotiation of subsidies the urban elites managed to redefine their relationship with the monarchy guarantee themselves for the strengthened civic rninorities and fine tune a tax systern in accordance with the social and econornic systems then in effect aboye all in keeping with the interests of the municipal oligarchies before observing these changes let us look at the earliest local forms of taxation

A) and eary development

The earliest references to local taxation predate even the existence of the established as such 1 t is also quite possible that the

adrninistrative infrastructure created to collect these first local payments rnight have made a decisive contribution to the legal shaping of the cornmunity and the creation of its bodies This is the case with Leacuterida whose citizens were authorized at the 12th century by Peter II the Catholic - and before the Consolat was created set up in 1197 - to organize local and royal collections In 1196 this king had authorized the probis hominibus de Ylerda et foti popuoylerdensi tam maiorum quam minorum to have a common treasury (in comune) funded by the

15 Things were not the same in the of Valencia where in 1329-1332 and in 1340-1342 the braifls of Cortes granted Alfonso IV and IV large subsidies for the war with Granada and to face the threats of the cf MR MUNtildeoz POMER Oriacutegenes de la Generalidad Valenciana Valencia 1987 pp 43-52

108

109 MANUEL SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FURIOacute AacuteNGEL SESMA lIlUNtildeOZ

contributions of the local people and aimed at covering the communitys needsl6 The situation was probably similar in other cities where the levying of taxes requested by the king or imposed due to a local necessity preceded the establishment of a true municipal regime Another later privilege of 1200 made it possible to deprive of the right of residence (vicinatico) all those who did not contribute to the local collections The privilege was included in the Costums of Leacuterida (1228) a text that had a great influence on the municipallaw in the western part of Catalonia

The final years of the 12th century and the first half of the 13th saw the joint creation and development of the municipal regime _ of the universitas and its governing bodies - and of local taxation Among the earliest evidence is the authority granted by Alfonso n the Chaste to the inhabitants of the town of Cervera in 1182 to elect the consules given the job of running it the afore-mentioned one in Leacuterida (1197) and that of Perpignan from the same year Barcelona may also have had a consulate system by the end of the 12th or the beginning of the 13th centuryl7 However according to Font Rius these early examples of municipal organization were as yet no more than hesitant trial runs or attempts and it was not until the second half of the 13th century with James 1 and Pe ter nI the Great that the establishment of a true municipal regime took place based on the articulation of three bodies a committee that governed the community made up of a small number of magistrates (consuls jurors paers or consellers) a larger council advising the former and the general assembly of the citizens or of the prominent men of the city We also find a simplified version of this model which appears totally configured in the large cities the small towns and the rural communities

l8

The Costums or municipallaws of Leacuterida and Tortosa the two main cities in New Catalonia conquered during the expansion in the mid-12th century influenced the drafting of those of Valencia and Mallorca the capital s of the two kingdoms created with the expansion of the 13th century The municipal regime of Valencia introduced in 1245 in turn influenced those of Barcelona and Mallorca created in 1249 By then all these cities had be en imposing the raising of funds or other forms of taxation on their inhabitants to satisfy both the demands of the monarchy and the needs of the local people Therefore local taxation and a minimal treasury apparatus no matter how rough and ready it may have been preceded the creation of the municipal governments themselves

This apparatus was already needed to administer the rents coming from municipalitys patrimonial estates the bienes de propios which seem to have been the first income for the municipal finances In Aragon Teruel had a large territorial patrimony granted by the king when he founded the city to which were added

16 M TURULL El naixement de la jiscalitat municipal a Ueida (1149-1289) in Corona municipis ijiscalitat a la baixa Edat Mitjana Leacuterida 1997 pp 219-232 See also IacuteDEM Arca communis dre municiPi ijiscalitat (duna peticioacute de pril)ilegijiscal al segle XVIII als origens de la jiscalitat municipal a Catalunya) Barcelona 1996 (Estat Dret i Societat al segle XVIII Hornenatge al Prof Josep M Gay Escoda) pp 581-610

17 ]M FONT Rrus Un probleme de rapports gouvcmements urbains en France et en Catalogne (XII et XIII sieces) in Annales du Midi LXIX 1957 pp 293-306

18 Ibidem and also IDEM Origenes del reacutegimen municipal de Cataluna in Anuario de Historia delDerecho Espantildeol 16-17 1945-1946

THE CROWN 01 ARAGON

various rents and taxes transferred by the royal treasure to the town (montaigos and jonsaderas among others) 19 On the contrary the Catalan Valencian and Balearic cities do not seem to have enjoyed an extensive patrimony with whose rents they could fill the municipal coffers or cover any financial emergency The immovable assets of the city of Valencia for example despite the fact that the radius of its municipal territory measured almost 30 kilometres were reduced to little more than the riverbed and the walls and moats that encircled the City20

The patrimonial resources were insufficient not only to meet the royal demands but also to pay for the needs of the local people This situation demanded from early on the gathering of tallas and other payments among the population As we have seen the royal requests materialized in the demand for sporadic redemptions from the military service and aboye all the payment of cenas peitas or questias taxes based on the old concept of feudal help (auxilium) which soon became the chief ordinary resource of royal tax collection Both terms (pecha in Aragon and questia in Catalonia whilst in Valencia both terms alternate or are even considered synonymous peyta sive questia) shared the same etymological meaning of demand (petita and questa) and alluded to the payments demanded by the monarch from his direct vassals the inhabitants of the lands and villas of the royal domain21 The questia first appears recorded in the uacuteber Feudomm Maior and was quite common in the 12th century generally associated with other payments in cash or which could be redeemed with money such as the military service which also fell within the same concept of the feudal obligation to help the lord22

Something truly important for tax purposes and aboye all as a stimulus to the creation of a municipal tax system was on one hand the turning of the individual obligation to contribute to the levying of royal taxes into a collective obligation assumed by the council to which the monarch delegated the collection of what had been requested acknowledging at the same time its legal status and on the other hand the quantification of the demand as a fixed permanent sumo

The first step can be documented at the beginning of the 13th century From being a tax probably collected to begin with by the local baile (the administrator of the rents and taxes of the royal estate) the questiapecha-peita went on to be controlled by the incipient municipal institutions which distributed the tax burden among the citizens In the case of Teruel since the beginning of the 13th century there had existed a rudimentary fiscal organization with the job of distributing and

19 MI FALCOacuteN PEacuteREZ Finanzas y jiscalidad de ciudades vilas y comunidades de aldeas aragonesas in Finanzas y jiscalidad municipal (V Congreso de Estudios Medie)ales) Aacutevila 1997 pp 239-273

20 JV GARCIacuteA MARSILLA La geacutenesis de la jiscalidad municipal en la ciudad de Valencia (1238-1366) in Revista dHist6ria Medieval 7 1996 pp 149-170

21 On the peita and the questia see A FURJoacute Limpoacutet direct dans les viles du royaume de Valence in La jiscaliteacute des viles au Moyen Age (Dccident meacutediterraneacuteen) 2 Les systemesjiscaux Toulouse 1999 pp 169-199 and IacuteDEM Deuda puacuteblica e intereses privados rznanf1sy jiscalidad municipales en la Corona de Aragoacuten in Edad Media 2 1999 pp 35-79

22 E RODOacuteN BINUEacute El lenguaje teacutecnico delfeudalismo en el siglo XI en Cataluntildea Barcelona 1957 p 212 In the mid-12th century the king ooly received questias in sorne places in Old Catalonia and their collection does not seern to have spread to the whole royal dornain until the reign ofPeter II the Catholic (1196-1213) M SAacuteNCHEZ MARTIacuteNEZ El naixement de la jiscalitat dEstat a Catalunya cito pp 40 and 77

110 MANUF1 SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FU RIOacute ANGEL SESMA MUNtildeOZ

collecting among the residcnts the sum dcmanded as mya pecha Tbis sum was shared out among the inhabitants of the town and its harnlets in proportion to their assets which constituted the taxable base for the levying of the tax For this it was necessruy to draft censuses and of wealth a task that Peter the Catholic translterrea in 1208 to a committee presided over by the justice the leader of the municipal governing body and made up of six jurors two from the town and four fmm the hamlets Up to then the inhabitants of the town had been paying 1000 sueldos all told while the hamlct dwellers had been contributing in kind with part of their harvests In that same year Peter the Catholic exempted the inhabitants of the town fmm the pecha and fixed the pecha to be paid by the hamlct dwellers at 4000sueldos23bull

There is record of the collection of this royal tax turned into a LUUlill-lpdl

tax with the same name queslIacutea or pecha (or the more common in 200) Barcelona (1226) Majorca (1237) and Valencia (1246 and 1 The fact

it was a proporcional tax (per soliexcldum et libram) first appears recorded in Leacuterida in and in a more detailed way in Barcelona quod ab hac die in antea omnes questie

et exaccione quecumque flent in civitate velpropter nos velpropter aliquod comune vicinalIacutes flant semper per solidum et per libram For thcir part in both Majorca and Valencia the obligation of the nobility and clergy to pay tax for the goods acquired fmm non-privileged persons was exprcsscd cxplicitly25 - something that would not avoid the repetition of disputes in the future26

For many years the questiapeita remained extraordinary in both its size and its periodicity as the kiacuteng was reluctant to establish stable sums for it and to it in regular instahnents He rather preferred to demand variable sums to bis needs and to do so when he really themT -shy

begiacutenning of the 14th century in Catalonia the had become a regular to the monarchys constant financial (the campaign against Almeriacutea the conquest of Sardinia the war with Granada ) and it was collected virtually every year with a volume on the other hand qtuacutete similar from one year to another both in its overall sum total - around 70000 Barcelona sueldos and in the respective contribution of each royal town28bull In Teruel where we have seen that in

23 MI F ALeOacuteN FinanzaJy jiscalidad cit

24 M TlIRULL El naixement de hjiJcalitat mumiipal a Ueida cit pp 224-226

25 JF LOacutePEZ La pnuticaiscal a la Malorca de la Bailta Edat Miljana (Jegles Xl1l-XVl) in Randa 29 1991 pp 13-35 And for Valencia liber tivitatis et regni Ialentie ed J

Valencia 19981 doc 23

26 See for rhe case of Valls J MORFJL() La intiMmia de _ JgtJ~u

la noblesa de baix rrJtg de Vals (s XIV-XV) in Elmoacuten urbd a h Corona dAragoacute del 17 alr decrets de Nova Phnta XVII dHistoria de la Corona dAragaacute Barcelona 20033 pp 613-627 lne same trung happened in itself or in Castelloacuten for ulllfJ

27 Barcelonas contribuuon to the quuacutelIacutea went from a sum betwecn the 26000 sueldos of 1209 and the 20000 of1222 to the 80000 of1276 and 1281 and the 100000 of1292 P ORTIacuteGoSJ Renda i jiscalital en una tilllat medieval Barcelona regles XII-XIV cit pp 586-600

28 M SAacuteNCHEZ-MiexclRTIacuteNEZ QuestieY subsidios en CrJtalufYa rmrante el primer tercio del siglo XIV el mbJidio para la crlliada gran(Jdina (1329-1334) in Cuadernos de Historia Econoacutemica de Cataluntildea XVI 1976 pp 10-53 Neverthcless between the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th most

THE CROVN Of ARAGON 111

1208 Peter the Catholic set the pecha at 4000 sueldos the sum total was to rise before 1283 to 7000 a sum that would not vary during the whole of the rest of the Middle Ages For its part in the kingdom of Valencia the peita seems to have been regular and periodic since its introduction in 1252 indeed the registers of the royal Chancellery attest to a triennial collection in the last years of the reign of James 1 from 1255 to 1275 although they might possibly correspond to annual periods29bull

The sums fluctuated from one collection to another but within quite sirruacutelar values These values were eventually set by Alfonso IV the Benign in 1329 as a fixed sum for each royal town Morella for example would pay 16000 sueldos each year to the

Xitiva 8000 Morvedre 7000 the same as Alzira Castelloacuten 5000 and so on for the other royal towns in a ranking that almost certainly depended on the population and everybodys personal wealth

Without a doubt the establishment of the size of the questiapeita ended up benefiting the cities On one hand because the demographic and economic parameters were changiacuteng and except in the case of Morella whose population fell drastically in the 14th and 15th centuries in the rest of the cities the tax level remained unchanged wbile their populations rose On the other because royal taxation gave rise to the introduction of a municipal tax (talla in Catalonia and Majorca peita in Valencia compartimiento in Aragon) to raise the sum requIacuteted bv the

through the queslIacuteapeita and the difference between was and what was collected the urban magiacutestrates becoming ever greater

was deposited in the municipal ThUS at a time somewhat later than the period here being observed Alzira wruch every year paid 7000 sueldos as royal peita collected around 20000 sueldos through this same tax the difference was even greater for example in Castelloacuten and Burriana towns that paid the kiacuteng 5000 and 2000 while collecting 30000 and 16000 sueldos respectively30

Throughout the 13th century therefore the first - and for a while the main -resource of the local treasuries was consolidated the talla (of the peita or the questia) a direct tax proportional to the assets of the payers justified by the royal demands The indirect taxes on consumption and transactions the backbone of urban

would not be long in taking up the baton We have iexclust seen that the royal demands on the cities were restricted to the

of the pechaqueslIacutea still extraordinary in nature and in variable sums whist UIllLlpal taxation was restricted to the collection of equally sporadic tallas to meet

the royal demands pay for the repair of the walls or dea with sorne or other local emergency But the dismal situation for the Crown that began as we have seen shy

of the big Catalan cities rescued trus tax and they were exempted from paying it M SAacuteNCIEZ El naixement de h jiscalitat dEJtat cit p 78

29 J TORROacute Cnitzatioacute i renda feudal L de la peita al regne de Valencia in Corona Jiscalitat cit pp 467-494

30 A FURl6 F GARCIA La economia ajines del siglo XIV seguacuten un libro de cuentas de 1380-1381 in La ciudad hirpaacutenica durante los XVI Madrid 1985 II pp 1611-1633 P VICIANO Poder i grup dirigent local Valencia La vila de Castelloacute de h Phna (1375-1500) Universidad de unpublished doctoral thesis 1994 and tOEM Fiscalita local i deute puacuteblic al Pauacute Valencia Ladministracioacute de la IJih de Borriana a miljan XIT in Anuario de Estudios Medievales 22 1992 pp 513-533

112 MANUEL SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FURI6 ANGEL SESMA MUNtildeOZ

with the consequences of the conquest of Sicily in 1282 and continued with the revolt of the Aragonese Union and the disputes with Castile over the kingdom of Murcia settled in 1304 obliged the monarchy to repeat and increase its demands on the royal cities and towns This in tum had an impact on municipal finances and taxation whose traditional resources were totally overwhelmed It was necessary to find new ways of levying taxes to broaden the spectrum of and economie activities liable to taxation

In Aragon the framework of the new local taxation was made up of the compartiacutemiento (a direet tax on assets) and the sisas (indireet taxes on consumption traffic and transactions) In the compartiacutemientos the calculation of the tax base was not done per solidum et libram but by set by the king that divided the citizens into manos In 1258 for example James 1 divided the residents of Teruel into three categories - posteros medios posteros and cuartos posteros names that alternated with those of maiores mediocres et minores shy and those of its harnlets into later in James 11 was to increase the number of manos to fifteen according to the assets of each taxpayer Por its collection Libros de maniflstacioacuten or de compartiacutemientos were drafted of which some copies have been conserved Moreover from the last decades of the 13th century onwards the monarchy began to authorize the royal towns to establish sisascises still temporary and extraordinary in nature not until well into the 14th century were indirect taxes to become an ordinary resource of the Aragonese municipalities31 bull

In Catalonia Majorca and Valencia also the cises a re so urce exceptional and limited to a specific objective to begin with would end up becoming the backbone of the municipal treasuries As in Aragon the earliest references date from the 1280s and 1290s and are related to the financing of public works and other local needs Thus already in the reign of Peter 111 the Great Barcelona had obtained the kings permission to establish a cisa with the aim of paying for the building of the city walls in 1287 Alfonso 111 the Liberal confirmed this cisa whose management he left in the hands of the consellers of the city without the intervention of the king or his ordinary officers32 In that same year the king authorised the town of Gandia in the kingdom of Valencia to impose a cisa on the consumption of wine and fish also with the aim of paying for the construction of the walls Despite this in both this case and that of Pego in 1291 ir was explicitly pointed out that the city magistrates could invest the sums collected in omnibus aliis necessitatibus dicte ville33 a further example of how the taxes authorized the king in this case for defence reasons could also be allotted to other local needs Lastly in Majorca the earliest news dates from 1300 when James 11 authorized the establishment of a cisa for a period of nine years and in 1309 when the stipulated period ended the collection of various cises on consumption was authorized (bread ground corn wine and

31 MI FALCOacuteN Finanzasyjiscalidad cit pp 249-260

32 See Corts parlamentr iexcljiJeaitat a Cataluya Els del donatiu cit doc 1 pp 1-7 33 MIRA P VICIA1JO La constrnccioacute dun sistema jiscal municipuacute i

in Revista drustoria medieval 7 1996 pp 135-148 For the a prevlous cisa in 1279 when Peter thc Great imposed a tax on the tavetn keepers although it does not seem to have becn municipal

al Paiacutes Valencid ofValencia we know oE and selling oE wine on

THE CROWN 01 ARAGON 113

meat) similar to those that had already been granted in Ibiza and Minorca whose aim was to raise funds for defensive works guarding the coastline the conduction of water and other local needs for ayear extendable on the wishes of the and with royal permission34bull

After these trials the authorizations given to royal cities and towns for the establishment of cises on the products of greatest consumption were to multiply from the beginning of the 14th century either to contribute to the Crowns military enterprises or to attend to local needs Among the latter especially important were the communitys defence costs above all in the areas most exposed to external threat like the south of Valencia from Orihuela to Guardamar still the subject of frequent attacks and raids by Granada and Casti1e It i5 against this backdrop of insecurity that we should place the series of grants for the collection of cises still called comune in Guardamar (1308) Orihuela (1312) and Elche (1319) with the aim of organizing and paying for the defence of the territory35 At the same time in 1315-1316 the establishment of cises or imposiciones in Barcelona Tortosa Valencia and other royal townS in Valencia had been authorised in order to contribute to James lIs campaign against Tunis and Bugia36bull

B) The large subsidies rif the rriquestyal cities and touJns as an altemative to the monarclJs failed attempts to establish general taxation (1323-1356)

However aside from these periodic and localized grants the spread of sisas cises and imposiciones to most of the cities and towns in the Crown of Aragon was not to take place until the 1320s in connectiacuteon with the escalation of the monarchys military eosts and its continual requests for taxation to finance them The process began with the impressive mobilization of resources all over the Crown for the eonquest of Sardinia (1323-1324) This was followed by the help of the coastal cities for the war wiacuteth Genoa and Granada between 1330 and 1336 After that the cities were again called upon to pay for with subsidies the Catalano-Aragonese participation in the war of the Straits of Gibraltar (1337-1340) and then the conflict with the king of Majorca (1342-1344) After a brief pause during the years of the Black Death the monarchys demands redoubled in the early 1350s in this case to once more pay for the wars with Genoa and the judges of Arborea in Sardinia And although the royal treasury faced up to these challenges by resorting to all the procedures in its power to put pressure on those areas where it was able to - the

LOacutePEZ BONET La prdctica jiseal cit See also P CATEURI BENNAsSER El regne eJlJail desenvolupament economie subordinacioacute poliacutetica (Mallorca 1300-1335) Palma de Mallorca 1998 pp 14-27 and IDEM Bis impostos indincteJ en Mallorca Palma de Mallorca 2006

35 MT FERRER MALLOL Organitzacioacute i defonsa dun territori frontmr La GOI)ernacioacute dOriola en el segle XV Barcelona 1990

36 M RO1RA S RIERA Ler concedides per la ciutat de Barcelona a Jaume 11 1314-1326 in dHistoria pp 35-38 and JV GARCIacuteA MARSILLA] SAIZ SERRANO

censa Finanzas municipales] claseJ dingentes en la Valencia de los siglos XIVy Xv in Corona 11Junicipis i jiscalital cit pp 307-334

114 MANUEL SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FURrOacute AacuteNGEL SESMA MNtildeOZ

Church through the Pope37 the religious minorities the foreign merchants and individuals in their kingdoms38 we have reason to believe that it was the royal cities that bore the brunt of this tax offensive by the Crown Indeed in the specific case of Catalonia we have seen aboye how Kings Alfonso IV and Peter IV failed in their attempts to wrest a general subsidy from the three brafos in 1333 and 1340 Therefore it was the royal cities and towns that financed those wars with very substantial gifts that the municipalities obtained almost always by the introduction of indirect taxes39 There can be no doubt that as we shall see below this almost uninterrupted series of subsidies between the 13305 and the 13505 brought about profound fiscal and financial changes in the local treasuries of the entire Crown

We are very familiar with the subsidies granted during the 1340s and 50s by the cities and towns of Catalonia in numerous meetings with the representatives of the maiacuten royal centres this help served to take one step further in the definition of a municipal taxation system that would make it possible to attend to the royal wishes and at the same time cover sorne local needs But as we have said earlier those grants were negotiated with the urban siacutendics in terms and with results not too different to those observed in the gifts granted at Cortes Therefore we should not be surprised that both in the help approved in 1340 to cope with the war against the Moors ofNorth (extended in 1342 to pay for the war agaiacutenstJames 11 of Majorca and in 1344 to finance the Roussillon campaiacutegns) and in sorne of the generous gifts offered for the war in Sardinia the requirement was introduced that the administration ought to be given to the prohoms elected by the urban reprcsenshytatives displacing in this task the king and his officers40bull

The situation fell apart at the end of the 1340s and got worse in the following decade The revolt of the Union and its military solution in 1347-48 with the unrest created in the cities and in powerful groups of the nobility of Aragon Valencia and Catalonia did not contribute to encouraging good political relations between the king and the brafos including the royal braf Moreover the difficulties of the feudal states and the fall in their rents reduced the arrogance of sorne old established families and encouraged the incorporation of the lesser nobility in political and

37 for example M SAacuteNCHEZ-MARTiacuteNEZ Fiscalidad pontijicia] jinan-lfu roaes en Catauntildea a meshydiados del siglo XIV as deacutecimas de 1349 1354 in Estudis Castellonencs VI 1994-1995 pp 1277 -1296 and P BERTRAN ROIGEacute Notes els subsidis de catalana per a la guerra de Siexclrdenya (1354) in Anuario de Estudios Medievales 29 1999 pp

38 JAacute SESMA MUNtildeoz LIs transformaciones de ajiscaidaa

39 On the subsidies of the Catalan royal cities and towns see M SANCIlEZ-MARTiacuteNEZ El naiacutexement de a jiscalitat cit pp 89-125 (with bibliography) fo the kingdom of Valencia J MARTIacuteNEz ALOY La Diputacioacuten de la Generalidad cit pp 93-145 Y MR MUNtildeoz POMER Oriacutegenes de la Generalidad Valenciana cit pp 41-52 and fo the kingdom S QUIacuteLEZ BURlLLO Fiscaliacutedad

autonomiacutea municipal enfrentamiento entre la villa de Daroca] la in Aragoacuten en la Edad Media 1980 pp 95-145 M SAacuteNCHEZ-MARTIacuteNEZ Sobre la jiscalidad roal en el roino de Aragoacuten duran1J elpnmer

tercio del siglo XIV in Revista de Historia Jeroacutenimo Zurita 67-68 1994 pp 7-41 and IacuteDEM El roino de Aragoacuten] los conflictos mediterraacuteneos a mediados del siglo XIV (1353-1356) in ArabTOacuten en la Edad Media 19200oacutepp-shy -

40 Corts parlaments i jiscaitat a Catalunya cit docs V1I-XVI


economic tife as well as the creation of a higher nobility close to the king41 Lastly the financial needs to be able to face up to the by now old revolt in Sardinia and the war with Genoa very soon inereased noticeably when the terrible war agaiacutenst Castile broke out in 1356 which was to demand everyones greatest efforts

Before that two important meetings of the Cortes of Catalonia took place in Perpignan We have already said that in the third and fourth decades of the century the kings had failed in their attempts to achieve general support from the three brafos However in November 1350 when six years had passed sinee the last grant obtained by the king from the braf of the Catalan cities and towns (March 1344) Peter IV decided to ask the Cortes meeting in Perpignan for help for the Sardinian war42bull Once again the king tried to involve alI the brafos in a military operation and indeed the three brapos did approve the grant for three years financial subsidy gathered by way of impositions or sisasases as the royal been doing applied generally and extensively to the entire principatity on wine cereals meat and woollen cloth an iacutempositioacute that had to be paid by all with no disshytinetion of privileges from the king to the humblest inhabitant43bull We are looking then at a major change in concept which might have signalled the establishment of a system of general tax collecting that would spread all over the State and unify the obligations of the whole of society the territory and the population the differences in jurisdiction and social status would continue to be marked by the old seigniorial taxation which remaiacutened unchanged It was a first attempt that pointed the way it was wished to go in the future but for which the groups elinging most closely to traditions were not prepared In the chapters approved in Perpignan the resistance still to be overeome was refleeted which were those that had been marking the negotiations for some time On one hand the stipulated sum was not specified the duration for three years after the end of the Cortes secondly more importantly it was agreed that a third of what was collected in the place s of the Chureh and the

should go to the holder of the jurisdiction that is there was a share-out of profits in which the cities and towns of the royal braf did not appear nor was the existence of the General envisaged yet and thirdly the administrator of the tax and the treasurers would be designated by Cortes not by the king Despite the concesshysions by both sides and the care observed in preparing the tariff and the ways of preserving the private interests it seems the agreement never carne into effeet It had still not been applied by the following Cortes (Leacuterida 1352) and the procedure and the people in charge of running it had still not been established

When it was decided to resume the levying of the tax the military braf pulled out and left the decision of continuing to the other two which in actual fact made the attempt to achieve an overall area of collection faiacutel once more lt is not surshy

41 JAacute SESMA MUNtildeoz La nobleza bajonJediel1ay aformacioacuten del estado moderno en la Corona de in La nobleza peninsular en la EdadMedia Leoacuten 1999 (Fundacioacuten Saacutenchez Albornoz) pp 345-430

42 There is informariacuteon about the meeting of the Valendan Lortes in 1349 and the Aragonese in 1351 we know some of the taxes approved at them but there is no record of any request for

43 M_Aacute_ h_ ota CathalulIJa axiacute en tots los Iochs de proats epersones e en elis de regines de comtes vescomtes nchs homel1s crJIifiexcllIers e altros persones generoses e

en lochs de ciutadans e de honenf de IJila (1 de dutas viles e altros lochs ro]alr de tota CathalulIJa (Cortr Paraments i jiscalitat a Catalunya cit doc X cap 1)

116 117 MANUEL SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FURIOacute AacuteNGEL SESMA MUNtildeOZ

prising then that in the following year (1353) Peter IV once more summoned the royal bra[ to meet to obtain new support although on this occasion the main cities and towns imposed conditions on its granting the most significant without doubt was that of reserving for themselves a quarter of everything collected in each place although to compensate they promised to advance the total sum offered which was to be placed on the taules of various moneychangers whereby they assumed the financing costs

We thus see that the situation was now changing in Catalonia and we can sense that the same must have been happening in the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia In the latter we see similar behaviour both with respect to the development of municipal taxation and to the decisions made at Cortes44bull It is more difficult to penetrate the development of the Aragonese Cortes whose minutes (actes) were not kept until the 1350s nevertheless after Peter IVs explanation at the Catalan Cortes of Perpignan in 1356 which we shall shortly be analysing it seems clear that the king had not managed to institutionally involve the bra[os of the kingdom in the fmancing of his military campaigns or make progress in the taxation procedure which would continue to be based on the pressure exerted on the cities and towns of the royal brat5bull

What we may consider the end of the old system took place at the Catalan Cortes held in 1356 once again in Perpignan At this gathering of the bra[os of the principality called before the war with Castile broke out Peter IVs intention was once more to ask peremptorily for help to organize a fleet against Genoa On this occasion the Catalan bra[os instead of reasoning as on other occasions that this was a kings war and letting it be in any case the cities and towns that provided the aid took a step further and made a new proposal Quite probably something similar had been decided previously outside the parliamentary sessions but it was at this meeting in Perpignan when the fact that the long duration of the war and the heavy financial burden it brought with it had to be borne by all not just by all the bra[os of the Cortes but by the whole kingdom was officially and realistically dealt with As a result the king was advised that manets Cort deg Parament general a tots los regnes e terres a la vostra m)ona sotsmeses so that all could help to find the solution

But if the proposal is surprising even more surprising was Peter IVs answer which consisted of recovering the old criterion according to which everyone had to fulftl their obligations thus refusing to bring together all his estates to reach a common agreement The king expressed the idea that on this specific occasion (a Mediterranean conflict) it was a case offets de mar and it therefore affected the regnes e terres mariacutetimes meacutes que als del regne dAragoacute The fact that he removed the Aragonese from all negotiation supposing that they were not interested in collaborating in the Mediterranean campaigns was due to the brazos of Aragon having said as much previously Just as the bra[os of Catalonia had been refusing to contribute to a

44 A very general exposition based on the conserved sources in MR MUNtildeoz POMER Origenes de la Generalidad Valenciana Valencia 1987

45 S QUJLEZ BURILLo Fiscalidady autonomiacutea muniCiPal cit A BERENGUER GALINDO Censal mort Historia de la deuda puacuteblica del Concejo de Fraga (siglos XIV-XVIII) Huesca 1998

THE CROWN 01 ARAGON

dynastic war in which the defence of the principality was not at stake46bull All this points to the fact that the king preferred to continue acting as he had always done negotiating individually with each territory what he could demand and claim Furthermore the king was also afraid of bringing the bra[os of Catalonia Aragon and Valencia together as his predecessors had done at the end of the 13th century as this would mean exposing himself to long discussions that might lead to improper demands and rebukes with an unpredictable outcome and moreover without having the help that he needed guaranteed All this also with the added risk that to obtain the subsidy he might have to accept unwanted conditions and that even the royal bra[os of the three territories might put obstacles in his way47 Apparently the meeting in Perpignan ended with no concessions made to the king confirming the tendency towards a degree of exhaustion and fatigue in the face of the repeated - and not always justified - cries for help by the king48

IV TOWARDS THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CENTRALIZED TAXATION IN THE

MIDDLE OF THE 14TH CENTURY

Against this backdrop and with the royal proposal and answer thrown down at the Perpignan Cortes still floating in the air in 1356 the war between the Crowns of Aragon and Castile broke out The danger was as real as that Aragon had had to face at the end of the 13th century against France Added to the obligation to answer the kings call was the need to defend the frontiers both land and sea It seemed that now without excuses the war affected everyone a la honor de vostra Corona et al bon estament deis vostres sotsmeses

A) The first help for the war with Castile (1356-1360)

The need for help in order to confront the Castilian attacks was this time a reality that Peter IV had to resolve The reluctance to put into practice the advice received at Perpignan - calling the General Cortes of the three kingdoms - marked

46 See M SANCHEZ MARTIacuteNEZ Las Cortes de Cataluntildea en la financiacioacuten de la guerra de Arborea (segunda mitad del s XIV) in La Corona catalanoaragonesa i el seu entoro mediterrani a la baixa Edat Mitjana M T FERRER MALLOL] MUTGEacute VIVES M SANCHEZ MARTIacuteNEZ (eds) Barcelona 2005 pp 363-393

47 Thus the conclusion mostra experiencia moltes vegades que meacutes tomaria una persona que endresarien tres REAL ACADEMIA DE LA HISTORIA Cortes de los antiguos reinos de Aragoacuten y de Valencia y principado de Cataluntildea Madrid 1896 II 2 pp 502-504

48 In ]anuary 1354 with the royal brazo meeting at a Parliament in Barcelona the representatives granted a gift to Peter IV so that he could go in person to Sarclinia to put down the revolt of the judge of Arborea the high sum of 100000 pounds would be obtained by extencling for three more years the imposicions that were in force and to save on expenses the subsidy would be administered by the people appointed by the king In August also in Barcelona the town representatives granted a new subsidy of 50000 pounds with the same purpose and similar conclitions In March 1355 in Leacuterida the cities and towns had granted help of 60000 pounds for the formation of a fleet except for the fact that the administration would be carried out by the people chosen by the brazo sorne months later in ]uly in Barcelona the grant was moclified because in view of events the fleet asked for no longer seemed necessary (Corts paraments ifiscalitat a Catalunya cit docs XIII XIV XV and XVI)

118 119 MANUEL SANCHEZ ANTONI FURIOacute ANGEL SESMA MUNtildeOZ

the flrst initiacives adopted by the king which went along traditionallines He called the Aragonese Cortes at Carintildeena near the border in July 1357 and in a few days received the grant of 700 mounted soldiers for two years paid for by the brazos as follows 200 the Church 128 the high nobility (ricoshombres) 40 the knights and inJCmzones and 332 the royal towns and cities Each brazo would organize the proper means for answering the call and although the subject of tax was not raised representatives of the brazos were elected to administer what was collected and supervise its use As was obligatory the king was due advice favour and help but he was not provided with money nor authorized to collect it what i5 more the king rumself was obliged to make up the army with 300 knights armed at rus own expense

Shortly afterwards on December 30th 1357 before the Cortes of Valencia the king made a similar plea for help receiving an identical reply though with some interference from certain member5 of the bra(oiexcl49 Finally the Valencian Cortes offered 500 armed knights with the same conditions that the Aragonese had imposed in order to know them precisely the Valencian bra(os asked for and received a copy of the grant approved at Carintildeena which they incorporated into the minutes of their process Though there was much hesitation with regard to the share-out among the bra(os when the session ended an agreement was reached the Church bra( provided 110 soldiers the military bra( 200 and the bra( of the towns and cities 1905deg As in the case of Aragon the king supplied 300 knights at rus own expense

In Catalonia things were not so simple and took more awkward twists and turns More than anyone the kings first instinct the surest one for his designs was to summon the royal bra( of the Principality in Leacuterida (February 1357) an assembly he couId not attend as he was by now immersed in the problems of the Aragonese border Following their by now traditional pattern the cities and towns of Catalonia once more demonstrated their total readiness to answer the kings call for help and they awarded him a generous package of aid of 70000 pounds to pay for men at arms51 bull Peter IV was reluctant to negotiate with the Cortes perhaps because he feared that in order not to contribute the bra(os might put forward the distance of their territory from the scene of the war in the same way that the Aragonese viewed events in the Mediterranean from a distance What is certain is that when it was decided to call Cortes (Girona-Barcelona 1358) the start of the assembly already showed the opposition of the military bra( whose obstructionist approach led to yet another failurcS2bull

49 Certain particular questions were dealt with like Valencias pro test over the consideration of Xittiva as a city or about the presence at the meeting of Catalan and Aragonese noblemen S ROMEU ALFARO Aportacioacuten documental a las Cortes de falencia de 1358 in Anuario de Historia del Derecho Espantildeol XLIII 1973 pp 385-427

50 Of them 100 were contributed by the capital and paid through a peiacuteta or colecla on iacuternmovable assets M R MUNtildeoz POMER I-A oferta de iaJ Cortes de [alencia de 1358 in Saitabi XXXV 1986 pp 155-166

51 Corts paraments i jiscalitat a Catalunya cit doc XVII

52 REAL ACADEMIA DE LA HISTORlA Cortes de los antiguos reinos 1 2 parte On this Cortes see J M PONS GURI UnJogatjament desconegut de tany 1158 in Boletiacuten de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de

THE CROWN OF ARAGON

It was not until the following year at a meeting in December 1359 in Cervera that the harmony between the Catalan bra(os and the king was restored although not so much among themselves The Cervera meeting was held beca use of the Castilian attack from the sea on Barcelona wruch placed the coastline in the same peril that for three years Aragon Valencia and the interior of Catalonia had been in The way the war was going urgently required a joint deciacutesion by the bra(os to be made in order to achieve a single collection that would affeet the entire territory and population of the principality The final agreement took a similar shape to those that had previously been made in Aragon and Valenda to finance a number of mounted 50ldiers that under certain conditions would serve in the royal army to defend the borders The novelty in part lay in the method of collection by way of a hearth tax (that i5 the sum to be obtained would be distributed according to the number of hearths) a method that required laborious preparation and which was open to a greater degree of irregularity and fraud especiacuteally on the lords states at that moment it does not seem to have signified a great renewal of fiscal concepts53

Nor did the assembly alter relations between the bra(os as formally a double grant was made On one hand the towns and ciacuteties of the royal bra( assumed half the grant 72000 pounds per year for two years to pay the wages of 900 tnights for 8 months of each year the ambit of the royal domain was therefore preserved as a unit of collection whose inhabitants would supply the necessary sums to gather the sum envisaged and moreover the double method of administration was mainshytained as the subsidy of the royal braf would be managed by the people designated by its members as had been decided at other previous Cortes On the other hand the two bra(os with jurisdiction which on trus occasion clearly got involved in the kings request agreed to take charge of the other half of the gift having their own people in charge and according to theagreed distribution they would proceed to collect the hearth tax on their lands for two years paying the 900 knights wages for eight months with it54bull

Thus in the three territories of the Crown all the brazos contributed to defence but not even in each of the states did they do so with the same criteria while on one hand the privileges would continue to be important on the other the fiscal differences would continue to be marked by the simple fact of living on manorial or

Barcelona XXX 1963-1964 pp 323-346 and J LUIS MARTIacuteN Las Cortes catalanas de 058 in Estudis dHistoacuteria Medieval IV 1971 pp 71-86

53 Prior to 1360 there is also record of a hearth tax in Aragon perhaps restricted to the domain and which could have been applied to collect the offer of Carintildeena in 1357 On hcarth taxes in the Crown of Aragon recently P ORri Una pnmer aproximacioacute alsJogatges catalans de la dCcada de 1160 in Anuario de Estudios Medievales 29 1999 JA SESMA Sobre los fogajes generales del reino de Argoacuteny su capacidad de reflejar valores demograacuteftcos en La poblacioacuten de Aragoacuten en la Edad Mediacutea (siglos XIII-XV) Zaragoza 2004 pp 23-53

54 corts parialllents ijiscalitat a Catalunya cit docs XVIII (1) and (2) This offer is similar to the one that two years previously the Valencian and Aragonese Cortes had made to the king 700 knights and 500 knights respectively for two years However in Cataloma the distribution betwcen brafOs (50) was slightly uneven as the royal braiP of Aragon assumed 47 of the subsidy and that of Valencia only 38 the Church and the military bra[ in both cases seeming to be much more generous and prepared to fulfll theiacuter obligations

120 MANUEL SANCHEZ ANTONI FURlOacute ANGEL SESMA MUNOZ

royalland Nor did the measures adopted influence the methods of administration as the establishment of common centralized management was still a long way off

In 1360 the Cortes of Valencia and Zaragoza were again called Peter IV so that they could once more approve help to allow him to maintain army recruited two years previouslv55bull In both assemblies the readiness of the to act together was notable their respective territories In Aragon the Castilian siege of Tarazona accelerated the putting into the field Cortes of a powerful arrny of 1320 knights which the three brazos (that the with less fmancial clout would supply men) promised to pay for a month at least electing sorne diputados de la Cort who would take charge of alI the that the royal officials did not touch In the case of Valencia in the face irnminent danger that Orihuela found itself in the

decided that per lo General sien eletes certes persones les quals sien constituiacutes en brafos with the aim of borrowing at interest the suro needed to

guarantee for a further seven months the wages of the 500 combatants that were on the border and also pay the costs of the interest We are thus looking at sorne deputies of the General- that is the three brafos together - commissioned to act on their behalf make payments and perform credit operations and to act against anyone who did not comply with what had been agreed by the Cortes in the specific matters for which they had been elected Next the king asked for help in keeping the war effort going envisaging a long duration and all the expenses it might give rise to However on this occasion things were not so easy to organize The Valencian brafOs agreed to grant 65000 pounds per annum for the following two years but they were unable to come up with a general method for its colIection A share-out was then decided according to the compartiment agreed upon for the 500 men at arms of the previous meeting that is 22 the Church 40 the military braf and 38 the braf of citiacutees and towns each one being free to choose the method of colIecting their part56 there was thus a retum to each braf acting independently according to their individual interests

To sum up both in Valencia and in Aragon and Catalonia very liacutettle progress had be en made in the transformation of the methods of colIection and virtually none in the organization of a single system of management by the General

B) The General Cortes ofthe Crown held at Monzoacuten (1362-1363)

In 1362 the help approved by the three territories of the Crown carne to an end but the ceaseless military activity on the borders despite some attempts at peace obliged the king and the representatives of the kingdoms to come up with

55 Those of Aragon in ]anuary 1360 (JA SESMA E SARASA Cortes de ExtractosyfraZmentos de procesos desapamcidos Valcncia 1976 pp and those of that year (S ROMEU ALFARO Cortes de Valentia de 160 in dc Historia del Espantildeol XLIII 1974 pp

56 In thc case of Aragon as we do not have the complete summary made in the 16th century therc is sum wrongly interpreted which was also diacutestributed in accordance Cortes of Carintildeena without us beiacuteng able to spccifv further

THE CROWN o ARAGON 121

measures to raise funds to alIow him to keep an army on a war footing Till then raiexcliexcl~Onleslte Valencians and Catalans had decided separately to finance a number of

the purpose of the defence of their own territory recruited among the people of the country led by the nobility of the respective kingdoms

paid with the money obtained by the brazos it could almost be said that three national armies placed at the kings disposal were being organized There was it is true a certain similarity of measures and sums as welI as the general participation

the brazos which once more shows us the harmony displayed in the relations between the states that compriacutesed the Crown and the seriousness of the undertaking acquired in the common defence In identical fashion in the bosom of the Cortes of Aragon Valencia and Catalonia the different interests were clearly seen that moved the royal brazo and the brazos of the Church and the nobility when it carne to deciding on a formula for single colIection It could be said that they alI defended the criterion of sharing the same house but leading separate lives as the brazos with jurisdiction rejected the collecting rnethods preferred by the towns and cities and chose to use methods of direct imposition more traditional and in which they could make better use of their particular privileges This is without doubt the main point of disagreement over and above the adrniacutenistration and other questions

It should not surprise us therefore due to the Crowns new difficulties Peter IV decided remembering the advice of the Cortes of Perpignan of 1356 to gather the representatives of the three territories in a single summoning of Cortes and try to promote an overall project to make it possible to unite the wishes and the interests of all to guarantee a generous colIection with the least possible damage This is the reason for the assembly in Monzoacuten of 136257 bull

The general assembly witnessed a laborious process of negotiation with notable tensions between the brazos (although it seems that those between the states were not so bad) during which the king fouad himself obliged ro demand drastic solutions and to give tlery speeches In the end as was to be expected the agreement was reached of alI the states of the Crown granting a pounds ayear for two years of which Aragon supplied 23 Catalonia 53 and Majorca 4 Each General was in tum given the task of finding the methods for colIecting its part distributing it between the brazos as had been done on previous occasions This was possibly the most controversial point and the one that generated most deJay in the final approval of the donation beca use as experience showed the various criteria that the royal brazo from the rest in matters of colIecting procedure a common agreement While the brazos rith jurisdiction chose the direct way of the collection of hearth taxes which were shared out among their members according to the number of vassals there were on their respective lands the royal brazos tried to keep the sisas levied on

umption and market dealing Given that these indirect taxes affected everyone

57 There is an editIacuteon of the actas by ]Mmiddot PONS GURI in voL L of the Coletcioacuten de Documentos Ineacuteshydel Archivo de la Corona de Aragoacuten Madrid-Barcelona 1982 PartIacuteal analyses of matters dealt with in SESMA LAfijacioacuten de fronteras econoacutemicas entm los estados de la Corona de Arqgoacuten in Aragoacuten en la Edad

Estudios de Economiacutea y Sociedad V 1983 pp 141-162 and IDEM Fiscalidady poder La Corona de Aragoacuten (siglo XIV) in Revista de la Facultad

1989 pp 447-463

122 123 MANUEL SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FU RIO AacuteNGEL SESMA MUNtildeOZ

who went to the urban markets or possessed rents in royal place s - whether they be men of the Church or people with a or lesser rank and privilege the brazos of the Churcb and the nobility that tbis was equivalent to a double contribution something they were not prepared to tolerate This was of interests the solution to which was either adopting the direct distribution by hearth tax in which personal were combinCLl space or by indirect taxation in this case introduction of concepts of universal application and without exceptions made it necessary to le1slate on a generallevel without observing the division

Therefore the principal new which had never before been orooosed and which would orovide a solution to the dispute lay in

without specifying it5 scope because obviously what was going to be collected could not be calculated in advance - was to be collected through a customs to be levied on the exports crossing the external frontiers of the Crown and a tax on the production of woollen

a manufacture very widespread and whose development was at the time uncertain which was in need of a general protectionist policy to keep it profitable With both criteria the aim was to have as little impact as possible on individual economies and to move into an area of levying taxes not formally exploited by the traditional forms of taxation On one hand the tax on exports did not clash with the old tolls or any other traditional formula that carried weight in the markets and in any case affected the end prices of the articles sold outside the kingdom furthermore as it affected foreign trade it could be ineluded in the Crowns sphere of attributions On the other hand tbe tax on the woollen cloth industry was imposed in return for the acceptance by all of measures aimed at revitalizing it as textile activity was experiencing a period of weakness due partIy to the stiff competition from 1 taly and England and partIy because it was suffering the interruption of Castilian trade because of the war therefore the producers were compensated with the granting of a monopoly in all parts of the Crown by prohibiting the entry and use of cloth made elsewhere and it guaranteed the consumers a regular and controlled supply of the necessary wooL It was in any case a very elaborate approach which 80ught wholly new solutions to the tax problems that had been dragging on for sorne time integrating them in a programme of improvement and rationalization of the Crowns internal economy

With one fell swoop a step was taken from the narrow approaches of the brazos to formulae that covered all the kingdoms Thus was introduced in a subsidiaty and rather surreptitious way a new tax rationale based on indirect tariffs levied on manufacturing and trade which made the whole population of the kingdoms equal and was extended with identical criteria over the territory as a whole Expressively this programme unifying fiscal treatrnent was named generalidades alluding to tbe concept of General the representatives of the brazos as a whole - as a union of interests to deal with matters that affected everybody

The desire to integrate lands and people was completed with the design of a body of equal representation which had to resolve the differences in the application of the plan take the measures for adaptation that might be necessary with use and at the end of each financial year meet in the town of Gandesa to

TI-IJ( CROlN OF ARAGON

of funds among tbe three partners with the aim of evening that might have arisen58 In tbe composition of this Diputacioacuten

lJiputaciones del General were present tbat in each kingdom and in the principality had from the Cortes like those siacutenditos or diputados already designated in previous assemblies by the brazos to control and administer the sums granted the king And it was to be these bodies whicb had appeared to represent a common voice of the brazos of Cortes in tbe collection and administration of the taxation created that were to be in future establisbed in government in the executive body of each of the states of the Crown during the periods when Cortes was not caUed

To begin with the new system of collection designed was not intended to supplant tbe previous ones it was a complement that was used to complete the 8ums collected by the traditional means However in the foUowing years the Cortes of Aragon Valencia and Catalonia broke the initial unity of management and application in tbe Crown as a whole adapting it to tbe particular characteristics of each territory both with respect to the tariffs and to the articles affected and to their collection on the internal borders In Aragon with very little textile production a territory exporting raw materials and basic products and a route of passage of Mediterranean cloth towards the markets of Castile the Cortes of Zaragoza in 1364 decided to establish the network of customs posts on its own frontiers and also lift the prohibition of the entry of foreign cloth including the Catalan and Valencian levying a tax on their movement and leaving the monopoly granted without effect These steps were immediately foHowed by the Cortes of Catalonia and Valencia Tbus the income from generalidades ceased to be general in the Crown was reduced to the areas of the three states and was concentrated exclusively in Aragon in the taxes on the products exported to all the neighbouring territories Catalonia and Valencia included In the latter two added to the income from exportation regulated differently was that from textile manufacture and other productive activities But in all three cases its management was incorporated into the duties of the Diputaciones and their development growing continually granted them a prime role in the taxation of the kingdoms From being extraordinary taxes the generalidades in any their variants became regular ones the money raised from them was the ordinary income par excellence of the treasury of each kingdom whicb not only met the and functioning costs of the institutions but also had the function of paying interests of the debt taken on by the Generalto quickly pay the grants to the king

For its part Cortes in its function of granting the extraordinary help requested by the kings for specific needs continued to approve the traditional methods of collection hearth taxes sisas etc always by sharing them the brazos and using the concessions as bargaining chips in the negotiations with the Crown59bull

58 For example the exportation of Aragonese goods through the Mediterranean ports or thc diacuteffieulties that just then were affeeting the frontiers with Castile

59 The new attempts undertaken at the general Cortes of the Crown in 1376 summoned due to the seriousness of the situation in the Mediterranean and the south oE Franee ended in similar fashion to the prcvious ones an easy agreement between the kingdoms to grallt the king help alld distributc it

124 125

MANUELSANCHEZ ANTONI FURIOacute ANGEL SESMA MUNtildeOZ

Meanwrule tNe states thr~ugh thcir TJiacuteputacio~es used the generalidades as an arca of taxation inflU~ced excluslvdy by them wruch spread over all the temtory and affectedthe wllle of society including the kings and theIacutet families

V THE PARAIacuteLEL CONSOLIDATION OF A MUNICIPAL TAXATION AND FINANCE SYSTEM

The afore-mentioned demands of the Crown in the middle years of the 14rh

century had a profound cffect on the municipal coffers Thus the consolidation of the sisas or imposiciones as regular in come of the local treasuries took place in the 1350s and 60s We have seen that until then the concessions for their collection had been limiacuteted in time in the articles asses sed and in the volume but the repetition of the royallevying had turned them into an ordinary permanent tax so that before a grant finished it had already been renewed or substituted by another Afterwards the extraordinary fiscal pressure caused by the war with Castile and aboye all the development of a long-term public debt meant the definitive stabilization and municipalization of the sisas whose sum total was destined maiacutenly ro the payment of the interests on the perpetual public debt60 In reality it was the connection between the taxation and the debt in other words the allocation of the payment of the debt on the imposiciones which brought about the consolidation of both and with it the creation of a true municipal treasury61 Let us look briefly at the generallines of trus process

Just like the king from early on the cities and towns also resorted to credit - to usurious loans or forced loans by the citizens - to resolve their liquiacutedity problems or cope with the odd financial emergency which the collection of taxes much slower and more complex made it impossible to deal with promptly62 With the

among them and huge tensions to proceed to the internal distribution among the brazos Especially in Catalonia the break between the royal braf and the other rwo prevented a single articulation Cortes Generales de Mon(Oacuten 1375-1377 ed JAacute SESMA MUNtildeoz vol IV of Acta Curiarum Regni Aragonum Zaragoza 2006

60 In 1363 in the context of the war widl Castile Peter IV empowered the royal cities and towns of the enrire Crown to set up new sisas and imposiciones for as as they felt necessary leaving in the hands of the towns and cities the admiacutenisttation of the tax However although in many cities (like for example Xilriva where the chapters of the annual returns of the sisas always refer to this authonzation of 1363) it was a general and perpetual grant the same does not appear to have occurred with the others where authorizations particular and limited in time seem to have followed one another (Alicante in 1366 fO five years Orihuela in 1371 EIx in 1378 for rwelve years) J BARRIO Las sisas en la gobernacioacuten de Onhuela durante la bqja Edad Media in Anuario de r~sruQ1OS Medievales 1992 pp 540-541 See also P VERDEacuteS A proposit del Pritilegj General per recaptar imposicions atorgatper Pere el Cerimonioacutes in MisceHilllia de Textos Medievals VIII 1996 pp 231-248

61 For Catalonia see M SANCHEZ-MARTIacuteNEZ P ORTI GOST La Corona en lageacutenesis municipal en Cataluna (1300-1360) in Corona municipis ijiscalita cit pp 233-278

62 On usurious loans see P LARA IZQUIERDO Foacutermulas crediticias medievales en Zaragoza centro de orientacioacuten crediticia (1457-1486) in Cuadernos de Historia Jeroacutenimo Zurita 45-46 1983 pp 7-90 CH GUIllEREacute Le creacutedi ti Geacuterone au deacutebut du XIV siMe (1321-1330) in La documentadoacutennotarialy la historia Santiago de Compostela 1984 n pp 363-379 JR MGDALENA NOMDEDEacuteU juJiacuteosy cristianos ante la Cort del justiacuteda de Casteoacuten Castelloacuten 1988 A FURIoacute Viacuteners i crMil elsjueus dAlrjra en la segona meitat del XlV in Revista dHistoria Medieval 4 1993 pp 127-160 As for forced loans they

111 F CROVN 01 ARAGON

emergency solved the loan was cancelled by the distribution of a talla or the establishment of a sisa However the increase in fiscal pressure in the miacuteddle of the 14th century accelerated the replacement of these short-term loans by other types of longer lasting loan such as the violans bound to one or two lifetimes and the censales which were only redeemable if the debtor wished - and aboye all at much lower rates of interest63 The violans and the censals on wruch the consolidated public debt of the municipalities in the Crown of Aragon was based are not peculiar to it - in contrast to the delay in the introduction of a similar type of debt in Castile where they do not appear until the end of the 15th century and especially do not become widespread until the 16th century nor were they as is often suggested by sorne economiacutec hisrorians incapable of crossing the threshold of 1500 an innovation of the Modern Age In actual fact with the name rentes constitueacutees annuities and many other variatjons trus type of rent (for life rentes viageres life annuities or perpetual rentes perpeacutetuelles perpetual annuitles) spread all over Europe between the second half of the 13th century and the first of the 14th

bull

And although the bibliography is relatively abundant and goes back to the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries for a wide area stretching from Silesia to the Crown of Aragon passing through the territories of the Germanic Empire England France and Northern ltaly the truth is that in the last few years interest has centred fundamentally on the cities of the Low Countries Germany Catalonia and the Valencian Country (which by no means justifies the ignorance of the financial history of the Late Middle Ages that can be seen in sorne works which place the origin of the censos and the development of the public debt in modern times) Moreover it was not a case of a novelty emerging in one area and spread from there to the rest but of parallel developments based on an institutional framework similar in its basic aspects and which took place in the countries with a level of economiacutec development also quite similar64

bull

The new finance system developed in the Crown of Aragon from the end of the 13th century firstly in priva te credit between individuals based on the censos or rents market and from the beginning of the 14th century on the municipal public debt However the issuing of censals by cities did not become widespread until the 1330s and 4Os agaiacutenst a backdrop of heavy taxation by the monarchy commiacutetted shyas we have seen to the war agaiacutenst Genoa the Straiacutets conflict and the recovery of the Balearics and they are found quite simultaneously in the main Catalan cities

wcre actually a gentle form of direct taxation as although it included the promiacutese of repayment of what had been loaned the financial difticulties of the municipalities frequently made it necessary to not pay it J V GARUA MARSILLA La linesis de lajiscaliacutedad municipal cit p 156

On this new fonn of credit see A GARCIA SANZ El censal in Boletiacuten de la Sociedad Casshytellonense de Cultura XXXVII 1961 pp 281-31OJM PASSOLA 1 PALMADA IntroJuccioacute del cemali del violan en el Vic medieval in Ausa 117 1986 pp 113-123 and A FURIoacute Creacuteditoy endeudamiento el cemal en la sociedad rural valenciana (siglos XIV-YV) in Sentildeoriacuteoy feudalismo en la Penimula Ibeacuterica (ss XII-XIX E SARASA E SERRANO eds Zaragoza 19931 pp 501-534

64 JV CARdA IvIARSILLA Vivir a creacutedito en la Valencia medieval De los oriacutegenes del sistema censal al enshydeudamiento del munidpio Valencia 2002 pp 177-178 A FURIoacute La dette dans ler deacutepenses municipales in La jiscaliacuteteacute des viles au Moyen Age 3 Toulouse 2002 pp 321-345

127 126 MANUEL SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FURIOacute AacuteNGEl SESMA MUNtildeOZ

Cervera in 1332-1334 Barcelona in 1340-1345 and Giacutetona in 1342-134365 In Mallorca and in the cities of Valencia the system of censals was imposed a decade later in the 1350s Alziacuteta in 1351 Mallorca in 1352 Valencia in 1355 and Gandia in 135966

bull For its part in Aragon where the new financial resource adopted by the municipal treasuries would take longer to become consolidated we find the earliest evidence of its introduction in 1324 in the small hamlet of Almudeacutevar and in 1326 in the Jewry of Zarag07a67

In the years however the system was not taken advantage of in all its possibilities concept of floating interim debt of usurious and forced still carried weight and the city magistrates tried to cancel it as soon as possible Therefore the most common type was the violan (life-Iong debt) whose rate of interest (1428) was notably lower than the loans at interest (20 of maximum usury) something that benefited the municipalities but it doubled that of the censal (perpetual debt) at arate of714 which made the violans more attractive than the censals to investors In any case neither these nor the cities still conceived interest as perpetual rents so attempts were made to pay off the debt in two or three years Very soon at the end of the 13405 it was seen that this was an increasingly fanciful undertaking and that before being able to redeem the censals taken out other new ones had to be taken on to cope with the new emergencies and even to pay the interest of the old ones Thus the debt accumulated in an unstoppable spiral that

the threshold of municipal spending higher and higher which made it necessary first to increase the sums raised by the imposicions and to extend their duration in time and later to make them permanent a regular income of the local treasuries and to allocate the payment of pensions to them68bull

The circle was c10sed by c10sely overlapping debt and taxation and all this to the benefit of the municipalitys creditors none other generally than the local governing elite or those of other cities Indeed in the face of any financial emergency - and the kings requests for money were at the top but they were not the only ones - the cities resorted to long-term debt through the issuing of censals which were subscribed mostly by members of the same urban and merchant class that monopolized the municipal governments in turn in order to pay the interest

65 M TI JRULL La configuracioacutejuriacutedica del municipi baixmedievaL Rigim municipal iflfcaitat a Ceroera enm 1182-1430 Barcelona 1990 p 459 Y ROUSTIT la consolidation de la dette publique ci Barceone au miieu du XIVe siexcllxle in Estudios de Hiacutestoria Moderna IV 1954 p 75 CH GUlLLEREacute Girona al segle XIV Girona 19931 pp 253 Y261 M SAacuteNCHRZ-MARTINEZ La Corona en los oriacutegenes del endeudamiento censal de los municipios catalanes in Fiscaidad de Estado y jiscaidad muniapal en los reinos hispaacutenicos medievales D

M SAacuteNCHEZ (eds) Madrid 2006 pp 239-273

66 A FIJRJOacute Creacutedito y endeudamiento cit p 515 P CATEURA La mntena esganifadora Guerra i jiscalitat (el regne de Mallorca 1330-1357) Palma de Mallorca 2000 pp 81-103 Y115-117

67 MI FAlCl)N Finanzasyflscaidad cit p 267

68 See a general overview for the whole Crown in A FURloacute Deuda puacuteblica e intereses Finanzasy flscalidad municipales en la Corona de Arttgoacuten cit and in M SAacuteNCHEz-MARTIacuteNEZ Defte publique autoriacuteteacutes princieres el tilles dans les pqys de la Couronne dArttgon (XIV-XV siecles) in Urban Pubic Debts Urban Governllents and the Marketfoacuter Annuities in Weslern Europe 141L 18h Centuriacutees M BOONE K DAVIDS P JANSSENS (eds) Turnhout 2003 pp 27-50 and concerning the problcms set the municipality by the public debt P VERmiacutes Per fO que la vila no vage aperdicioacute La gestioacute de deute puacutebic en un municipicatalci (Cer1Jera 1387-1516) Barcelona --~

THE CROWN 01 ARAGON

(pensions) on this accumulated debt new sisas were introduced the range of products taxed was broadened the rates or percentages were increased and were collected more and more frequently The escalation of the debt brought with it then greater fiscal pressure whose beneficiaries were not so much the Crown and the cities as the private investors to whom much of the tax paid by the population was diverted in the form of pensions All in all and in spite of the enormous tax in come that was consumed in the payment of the interest it was not the municipal debt that exhausted local treasuries until then in good shape it was the very need to pay regular rents which led the cities authorised to do so by the monarch to have equally regular ordinary tax resources The effect of the consolidation of the longshyterm debt was not only the stabilization of ordinary taxes (sisas or imposiciones) but also with it that of the municipal treasury itself Indeed the transformation of the sisas into ordinary income established and ron by the urban magistrates69

culminated the process of constructing a troe municipal tax system stable with regular income and autonomous in which the power of decision fell in the final instant into the hands of the local authorities70bull From hereon they could freely decide how to finance their needs including the royal taxation whether by direct taxes (tallas peiacutetas and compartimientos) indirect ones (sisas) or the issue of public debt besides modulating the level of fiscal pressure according to the financial emergencles

The municipal taxation system and with it the consolidation of the local treasuries was thus definitively established in the middle of the 14th century But only in Catalonia Majorca and Valencia In Aragon the process seems to have been slower as it did not develop completely until a century latero Of course in Zaragoza Huesca and other cities in Aragon the sisas were collected but they were much frowned upon and were even prohibited at Cortes on several occasions (1371 1393 1398) At the beginning of the 15th century they were still an exceptional resource and only became a regular procedure in the middle of the century coinciding with the disappearance of the compartimientos (in Zaragoza) and the increase in the public debt But aboye all with the rotary system approved by Cortes which allotted the sum total of the sisas for one year to the kiog another to the Ceneral and the third to

69 From 1322 the jurors standing down in Orihuela had only to account for theiacuter administratiacuteon of the tax ro the new jurors the intervention of the royal officials being prohiacutebited A situariacuteon rhat was confirmed in 1394 by John 1 when he established that jurors did not have to account for the administration of the sisas to the mestre racionaor to any other royal official J HINOJOSA JA BARRIO Las sisas en la gobernacioacuten de Orihuela cit p 542 In Valencia however in 1360 the mesm racional was still demanding the presentltion of the accounts of all the sisas from previous years 1V GARCIA MARSILLA La geacutenesis de la fiHalidad municipal cit p 160

70 As in the case of the establishment of the questiapeita the municipalization of the sisas also generated a differentiacuteal margin in favour of the cities between what was paid to the king through the

ro collect and what was really collected them Thus in 1339 the of Valencia gave Peter IV 51000 sueldos for a sisa on meat lasting two years while the leasing of the tax in a single year amounted to 54375 sueldos more than double therefore what the city had paiacuted fm it The margin was cven more profitable in 1360 when Valencia the same king 60000 sueldos for the right to impose sisas for ten

other words about 6000 sueldos per annum) while the leasing of the first year brought it income sueldos JV GARClA MARSILLA La geacutenesis de laflstalidad municipal cit p 161

128 MANlJEL SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FlJRJOacute AacuteNGEl SESMA MlJNtildeOZ

the mucicipalities which contributed to its stabilization as a regular tax levied annually71

The long-term public debt was adopted not only by the municipalities but also by the brand new Diputaciones of the General in Aragon Catalonia and Valencia These new bodies created as we have seen to administer the large subsidies granted by the Cortes throughout the 1360s did not take too long to begin financing the said aid through the issue of debt allocated on the tax of the eneralidades and other resources of the respective Diputaciones And the conseguences were the same mutatis mutandis as in the municipalities the need to cope with a growing debt (now on the scale of each of the two kingdoms and the principality) allocated on the generalidades in fact made these taxes permanent and transformed the Diputacioacuten from a mere body administering the grants into a long-Iasting institution whose powers went beyond from the beginnings of the 15th century the merely fiscal and financial to become powerful political bodies In Catalonia the first sale of rents by the Diputacioacuten took place in 1365 and very soon the long-term public debt became acclirnatized in a lasting way in that institution so that by 1371 steps began to be taken to reduce the volume of debt and rationalize its finances72bull With regard to the Diputacioacuten of the kingdom of Valencia it seems it resorted to issuing rents for the first time in 1390 the study carried out on the finances of this institution in the first two decades of the 15th century has made it possible to document new issues in

1403 and above all 140473bull With the same time intervals and similar impulses the first issues of censales by the Diputacioacuten of the kingdom of took place whose finances reached the closing decades of the 14th centurv so full of pensions that very drastic recovery measures had to

Perhaps we should consider as one of the most original characteristics of the Crown of Aragon the appearance and development of the public debt in the respective Diputaciones after the second half of the 14th century The intense nature that the fact of being guaranteed with the assets of the entire community conferred on the rents issued by municipalities is well known This same public dimension is observed in the case of the censals sold by the Diputaciones of Catalonia Valencia and Aragon as we have said the payment of the pensions was allocated on the tax of the generalidades but the sales were guaranteed with the assets of the entire political community included in the concept of Generaf5 Thus from very

71 Mr FALCOacuteN El sistema jiscal de los municipios aragoneJeJ in Corona municipiJ ijiJcalitat cit pp 206shy208 l1uumls rotational distribution of the sisas was already in effect at the CorteJ oE 1451-1454 Also in IacuteDEM Finanzas]jiscalidad cit pp 259-260

72 On the first issues oE debt by the Diputacioacuten of Catalonia see Corts parhments i jiJealitat dncs XX(2) and XXI (Cortes de Tortosa y Barcelona 1365) doc XXIV (Cortes de Tortosa 1371) doc XXVI (Cortes de Urida 1375) doc xxvn (Cortes de Monzoacuten 1376) and doc XXVIII (Cortes de Barcelona 1378)

73 MR MUNtildeoz POMER Oriacutegenes de h Generalidad lamciana Valencia 1987 pp 315-333 343-348 Y352 74 JAacute SESMA MUNtildeoz Trqyectoria econoacutemica de h hacienda del reino de Aragoacuten en el siglo XV in Arashy

goacuten en la Edad Media Ir 1979 pp 171-202 7S For example public debt sold by the

Generale Cathalonie et omnes unuumlersiacutetates corpora et universa et siacutenfuh bona

of Catalorua in 1383 was guaranteed on diacutectum et personar et quoJcumque deputafoiexcl et administratores ac

(Archivo de la Corona de Aragoacuten

THE CROWN O)i RA(i( lN 129

early on (remember that the first rents issued by the Diputacioacuten de of Catalonia date from 1365) we see how State bodies issued public debt allocated on their own taxes - the generalidades shy collected on their own frontiers and ~ULHLO with the assets of each and every one of their inhabitants

Finally there were several factors that contributed to the financial institution - the censal shy and to it8 transformation iacutento a of both the economy in general and of the public debt in particular On one iacutets very adoption by the public institutions (the municipalities the Diputaciones and the royal treasury) which together with the securities deposits and all kinds of legal guarantees helped to give the system security and to favour its spread to all areas of economic life On the other its greater moral lawfulness as opposed ro usury condemned by the Church although the ecclesiastical doubts and fears over the censal were not overcome until well into the 15th century And lastly the tendency to fall or rather plunge of the interest rates which from the 20 of legal usury (set in the 13th century) and the 1428 of the violmis fell to 714 in the censals (second half of the 14th century) to fin1sh at 5 at the end of the 15th

century

To sum up this is the development of taxation in the Crown of Aragon in the fmal centuries of the Middle Ages the change from the old royal and county taxation to the new State taxation emerging with the appearance of the Cortes and the mucicipalities although it did not disappear and which we can condense into a few key points Firstly of the four areas of taxation sketched the two most traditional (the royal and the seigniorial of the as lord) are anchored in obsolete methods that can evolve no further while two more recent ones (the

and that of the states) are those that in the development experienced by taxation throughout the 14th century The transformation profound and radical affected both the concepts and the methods of collection and administration so that the system established at the end of the 13th century would have been totally renewed fifty years later

Secondly the synchrony and symmetry with which the new developments are received and applied in each of the territories making up the Crown so much so that it is impossiacuteble to place the of the innovations in any of the states always in permanent contact to information Despiacutete being based on different economic systems the common substrarum from the monarchy establishes an absolutely identical structure though adaoted to their own ways of expression Tndeed it is symptomatic that the bases profound changes are adopted at the general Cortes

Thirdly the interaction existing at all times between the taxation system adopted and the political situation the Crown was going through The tax and financial changes introduced are the result of the needs urged from the monarchy

Generalitat G 11 nO 1 fol 16r) And public debt issued by the deputies of Valencia in 1404 was guaranteed por omnia bona et iura Generaluacute dicti regni [ValentieJ et omnium et singulorum brachiorum taJ1 ecclesiastiacuteci militaris quam flgaliJ predictorum et quorumvis Jinguarium brachiorum ipJorum simul et cuiusviJ ipsorum insoidum mobilia et inmobilia ubique habita et habenda (M R MUNtildeoz POMER Oriacutegenes de la Generalitat valenciana cit doc nO 16 p 481)

130 MANUEL SAacuteNCHEZ ANTONI FURIOacute AacuteNGEL SESMA MUNtildeOZ

and the response is conditioned by the balance of powers in the bosom of society with the very marked differences between the interests of the citizens on one hand and the Church and the nobility on the other something that causes ultimately the original search for solutions to meet the demands of all the force s with the minimum damage done to the general resources trying to compensate by other means for the reduction of privileges or the increase in fiscal pressure at certain times This explains in part why the great debates were not carried out between the states - which meeting at Cortes reached agreements and distributions quite quickly and with few differences - but between the brazos in each territory which protest the loss of their privileges and the demands for compensation among themselves and with the king

Lastly we have to point out that the fiscal changes and the new methods of collection impose the establishment of a framework of administrative management through bodies of equal representation that assume political and governmental functions at the highest level In both the municipal sphere and in that of the kingdoms the impulse allocated by the need for collection and the control of the debt generated in the institutions created for this purpose give rise to a radical change in the system of government and of relations with the Crown In fact the organization of the municipalities and the Diputaciones far more than the Cortes were to mark the path of the power in the Crown of Aragon in the centuries of the Late Middle Ages and in both cases the basis of their capacity is the control of the finances In both one and the other in the cities and the states the fiscal prominence that was allocated to trade and to manufacturing production as a basis for taxpaying (sisas and imposiciones on consumption and movement) subordinated the good health of society to the state of the economy making necessary the continuous implementation of protectionist steps and of promoting mercantile activity And in this dynamic it was to be the urban groups also the main beneficiaries of the public debt who went on to dominate the poli tic al and social structure

100 MANUEL SANCHEZ ANTONI FeRIoacute AacuteNGEL SESMA MUNOZ

new kiacutengdom in a new political space more advantageous for the monarchys actions as there was no great feudal aristocracy and for the introduction of the new Romanist currents that were strengthening the sovereigns authority Finally Majorca - detached from the Crown along with Montpellier Roussillon and Cerdagne by James I who divided his kingdoms up among rus sons - had a privative dynasty until Peter the Ceremonious incorporated it once and for all into the Crown in 1344 Although the peculiarities of the three kingdoms and the principality of Catalonia far from fading would assert themselves over time until they culminated as we shall see in the middle of the 14th century they always maintained the idea of unity that the common monarchy gave them

Such a vast expanse of territory required a huge organizational effort The new kingdoms and territories had to be setded organized into administrative units given laws and institutions in short the colonization had to be organized at the same rate as the expansiacuteon - expansion that was not merely the preserve of the Catalano-Aragonese monarchy or the rest of the Iberiacutean kingdoms likewise embarked upon the conquest of al-Andalus but also of the rest of the monarchies of Christian Europe confronting each other in a continual process of redefining their frontier8 with the 1088 or annexation of new lands For this to prepare for war offensive or defensive to protect the rights acquired in the markets and trading routes - we must remember that in the case of the Crown of Aragon the expansion also had right from the start a strong mercantile side to it in the Mediterranean that was to last for the rest of the Middle Ages - and to administer their kingdoms to maintain a growing and increasingly complex bureaucracy huge resources were needed Did the Crown have them

1 THE INADEQUACY OF THE MONARCHYS ORDINARY RESOURCES

According to an old theory uphcld to protect their own interests by the representatives of the different kingdoms even though nobody really believed in it mediaeval kings had to live from what was theiacuters ie from the rents and taxes coming from the royal estatesl Trus was not the case with the Crown of Aragon where in the mid-13th century the king was no longer abJe to live exclusively from rus patrimonial income The cosdy foreign policies of the first count-kiacutengs and especially of Peter the Catholic (1196-1213) had profoundly eroded the income from the royal domain As TN Bisson pointed out the need to take out sizable loans providing as guarantees large areas of land and resources of the domain drastically depleted the monarchys patrimonial base Indeed in the lands received as surety for the loans the creditors acted like authentic lords whereby the sovereign lost control over much of his ordinary income2

bull

Therefore one of the chief tasks of the regents and tutors ofJames I during the early years (1213-1229) of rus reign was the restoration of that depleted patrimony

1 On this point see L SCORDIA Le roi doit IIacutevre du sien La theacuteone de Iimpoacutet en Franee (Xlll-XVf) Paris 2005 (lnsritut deacutetudes augusriniennes)

2 TN BISSON Fiscal Account of Catalonia under the Early Count-Kings (1151-1213) Berkelev 1984

(University of California

THE CROWN OJi ARAGON 101

Besides recovering many of the places given as securiacuteties the regents took both in Aragon and in Catalonia important steps designed to achieve a better and more careful management of the patrimonial domains supervising the accounts of their administrators and collecting rents and taxes punctually Thus after these initiatives and a renewed interest in keeping central accounts of the domains (above all after the conquests of Majorca and Valencia) during the long reign of James 1 (d 1276) the Crown of Aragon was quite possibly still being funded largely by the income from the royal estate3 even though income from other taxes had already begun to be collected levied at exceptional moments on the whole kingdom and not merely as up to then on the royal domain

As in other Western kingdoms in his domain the king acted as a lord of lands and men receiving with sorne exceptions the same rents and identical taxes to those receiacuteved by the great lay and ecclesiasticallords on their estates Above all he I~I recclved the rents generated by the royal possessions and monopolies such as ii

ovens butcheries mills fishmongers salt mines etc He also received a series of taxes levied direcdy on his men and part of the ecclesiastical tithe on the lands of rus domain4bull Thus the monarch was entided to demand in the cities and towns of the royal domain a number of taxes like the pechas (Aragon) questias (Catalonia) and peitas (Valencia) Levied regularly since the middle of the 13th century and with a certain degree of arbitrariness as to their size limited only by the growing skill at negotiating of the nascent municipalities these taxes were the Crowns most imporshytant source of flnance before the spread of the subsidies granted by parliaments (Cortes) well into the 14th century Similarly important for the royal treasury were the sporadic redemptions of military service (host and cavaleada) Lasdy although less financially important for the Crown the king received cenas (old right of hospitalishyty) limited from the end of the 13th century to a fixed sum paid in cash It is imporshytant to bear in mind that almost all these contributions were paid on the whole the rural and urban communities to the royal tax collectors and that in order to raise the sums demanded different tallas were established among the inhabitants of 11

the cities and towns according to their assets (per solidum el libram) Therefore in these practices already extensively documented from the beginning of the 13th century we find as we shall see later the flrst signs of a specifically urban taxation system

The king also received the funds raised by a series of indirect taxes (lezdas ~I lleudes mesuratges pesos peajespeatges ete) levied in the markets of the royal cities and I

3 TN BISSON Las finanzas deljoven Jaime 1 (1213-1228) X Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Arag6n Zaragoza 1980 n pp 161-208 and IDEM Prelude to Power Kingship and Constitution in the ampalms ofAragon 1175-1259 in RL BURNS The WorMs ofAlfonso the Leamed and James the Conqueror Princeton 1985 pp 23-40

4 In Valencia it was a thlrd of the rithe (tctf-deme) after the agreement reached in 1241 between the king and the bishop This rent was the largest income of the royal estate in the kingdom of Valencia see among others E GUlNOT El Patrimoni reial al Paiacutes Valencia a iexclnicis del segle XV in Anuario de Estudios Medievales 22 1992 pp 581-639 and AJ MIRA JOacuteDAR Entre la renta y el impuesto Valencia 2005 (publicaciones de la Universidad de Valencia) Also in Majorca the oE 1315 regulated the disrriacutebution of the rithe between the king and the bishop O F LOacutePEZ El dieW10 en el reino de Malorcay en la estructura econoacutemica de la Procuracioacuten Real (1 ~ 1 _111)( I J)~1- 1

1986)







THE CROWN OF ARAGON

















THE CROWN 01 ARiGON















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON








108




l8






THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















































































THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















THE CROWN OF ARAGON



























1989 pp 447-463















124 125













bull


bull
















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century















THE CROWN OF ARAGON

















THE CROWN 01 ARiGON















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON








108




l8






THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















































































THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















THE CROWN OF ARAGON



























1989 pp 447-463















124 125













bull


bull
















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century


















THE CROWN 01 ARiGON















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON








108




l8






THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















































































THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















THE CROWN OF ARAGON



























1989 pp 447-463















124 125













bull


bull
















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century

















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON








108




l8






THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















































































THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















THE CROWN OF ARAGON



























1989 pp 447-463















124 125













bull


bull
















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century









108




l8






THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















































































THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















THE CROWN OF ARAGON



























1989 pp 447-463















124 125













bull


bull
















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century


















































































THE CROWN 01 ARAGON


















THE CROWN OF ARAGON



























1989 pp 447-463















124 125













bull


bull
















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century

















THE CROWN OF ARAGON



























1989 pp 447-463















124 125













bull


bull
















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century





























1989 pp 447-463















124 125













bull


bull
















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century























124 125













bull


bull
















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century




















THE CROWN 01 ARAGON























century
























century









Manuel Sánchez, Antoni Furió, Ángel Sesma Muñoz Old and...

Documents

Transcript of Manuel Sánchez, Antoni Furió, Ángel Sesma Muñoz Old and...